
(fes 1 fsoB 

Hodk . W5" 

PRESEXTEl) m 



Practical House, Wagon 

and Automobile 

Painter 



Including Sign Painting, and Valuable 
Hints and Recipes 



BY 

W. F. WHITE 
§1 



SHREWESBURY PUBLISHING CO. 
CHICAGO 









Copyright, 1919 

BY 

SHREWESBURY PUBLISHING CO. 






• • « 

• • • 



MAR 12 '23 



Z^ 



{^^/^ 



INDEX. 

PAGE. 

Analysis of Yellow Ochi e 3 

Brown Hard Spirit Varnishes 89 

Blistered Doors, to Repaint 85 

Brass, to Clean , . . 88 

Black Varnish for Iron 87 

Blinds, to Handle when Painting 33 

Brass and Copper, to Clean 35 

Black Varnish for Iron Si- 
Bronze for Metal ■ 85 

Benzine, to De-odorize 82 

Bronze 144 

Blackboard Slating 83 

Blackboard Slating, Cheap, but Good 83 

Blackboard, to Make on Common Piaster 83 

Brush Cleaning Trough 25 

Brick, to Clean 38 

Brick Painting 28 

Crawling Paint 5 

Cracks in Walls, to Fill 131 

Cleaning a Room 29 

Cherry Stain 44 

Cracks in Paint and Varnish 20 

Cleaning Phseton Cusliions 142 

Carriage Painting 134 

Damp Walls, to Treat 73 

Dipping Paint , 88 

Door Plates, to Clean 84 

Damar Varnish 26, 91 

iii 



iv IndeXc 

PAGE. 

Dry Ochre for Priming 2 

Estimating Work 14 

Enameled Letters, to Apply to Glass 95 

Furniture Varnish 91 

Fire-proof Paint for Roofs 86 

Fluoric Acid, to Make 132 

Gold Varnish 90 

Guessing on Work. 8 

Glass, to Crystallize 93 

Gilding on Glass 8 

Gilding on Wood 38 

Grease Spots, to Kill 34 

Hard Wood Floors, to Finish 33 

Hard Putty 121 

Japan, Testing 19 

Kalsomine 34 

Kalsomine, to Make and Apply 121 

Liquid Wood Fillers 133 

Lacquers for Brass and Tin 91 

Leather Varnish (black) 91 

Lead Poisoning and Symptoms • 53 

Liquid Glue 93 

Lamp Black, to Mix 87 

Liquid Glue for Kalsomine and Wall Sizing 123 

Measuring a Job 17 

Mahogany Stain 44, 45 

Midsummer Painting 67 

Marking Ink 146 

Natural Wood Finishing. 47 

Old Carriage Work 140 

Oil Size for Old Whitewash 37 

Old Wall, to Prepare for Paint 124 

Oak Stain, dark 45 

Oil Rubber Paint for Cloth 83 

Painting Cars at Home 153 

Plastered Wall, to Paint 127 



Index. V 

PAGE. 

Paste to Hold Labels on Tin. 31 

Paint to Prevent Rotting under Ground 82 

Paint, to Remove. ,...., 35 

Paper Hanger's Outfit 91 

Price List and Measurement , 62 

Paint, to Clean 84 

Porcelain Finish 52 

Paper Hanger's Paste 92 

Putty, to Soften ..„ 18 

Putty, to Color 50 

Paste for Painted or Varnished Walls 93 

Rust Spots on Marble , 145 

Red Saunders Stain 45 

Red Wood to Finish 145 

Rough Stuff „ 142 

Rough and Sandy Walls 129 

Sizing Walls 94 

Sign Painting. 99, 117 

Scaled Work, to Repaint 77 

Sixteenth Century Oak 55 

Spots on Paint 50 

Sandpapering 76 

Oak Wood Stain 94 

Stencil Border 77 

Spirit Varnishes 88, 90 

Size Muslin for Lettering 78 

Slowing the Drying of Paint 85 

Stir Your Paint 41 

Stencil Ink (black) 144 

Signs on Colored Glass 131 

Strainers 34 

Silver, to Clean 35 

Stencil Staining 26 

Success in Painting 7 

Symptoms of Lead Poison 55 



vi Index. 

PAGE. 

Tin Roofs, to Paint 2 

Tents, etc., to Make Weather-proof 32 

Tacky Paint, to Cure 18 

Tortoise Shell, to Imitate 61 

Varnish to Fix Pencil Drawings 145 

Varnish to Imitate Ground Glass 60 

Varnish for Rustic Work c 61 

Varnish 'Stains , 44 

Varnished Paint, to Clean 85 

Very Dirty Brass, to Clean 61 

Wax Polish 26 

Whitewash, to Soften 145 

Water Glass for Floors 145 

Walnut Stain 44 

White Hard Spirit Varnishes 89 

Walnut, to Stain Like Mahogany 46 

Water Colors, to Mix 78 

White Shellac, to :\Iake 49 

White Enamel 60 

Wall Sizing for Kalsomining 97 

Why Do Wall Papers Crack 36 

Whitewash for Outside 33 

Wax Floor Finish 88 

^inc, to Clean 38 

Zinc, to Paint on 32 



PRACTICAL 
HOUSE PAINTER. 



The following is an infallible and simple commercial 
test of the purity of white lead: 

"Take a piece of firm, close-grained charcoal, and near 
one end of it scoop out a cavity about half an inch in 
diameter and a quarter of an inch in depth. Place in the 
cavity a sample of the lead to be tested, about the size of 
a small pea, and apply to it continuously the blue or hottest 
part of the flame of the blow-pipe; if the sample be strictly 
pure it will, in a very short time, say in two minutes, be 
reduced to metallic lead, leaving no residue; but if it be 
adulterated, even to the extent of ten per cent only, with 
oxide of zinc, sulphate of baryta, whiting or any other car- 
bonate of lime (which substances are the principal adulter- 
ations used) or if it be composed entirely of these materials, 
as is sometimes the case with cheap lead (so-called), it can- 
not be reduced, but will remain on the charcoal in an 
infusible mass. 

"A blow-pipe can be obtained from any jeweler at small 
cost. An alcohol lamp, star candle, or a lard oil lamp 
furnishes the best flame for use of the blow-pipe. This 
test is very simple and any one can very soon learn to make 
it with ease and skill." 



2 Practical House Painter. 

JAPAN. 

Always cut your japan (in a little turps before you 
add it to the paint. An ounce of japan, cut with 
turps, will do better work than two ounces in oil 
paint, if put in clear. Don't add dryer to any more 
paint than you can use up in a few hours, because it 
will soon commence to fatten your paint in the pot 
and lessen its covering and wearing properties. Many 
a job has been spoiled by using old color, doped with 
japan. Such paint is liable to mildew. 

OBJECTIONS TO THE USE OF CHEAP DRY OCHRE AS A 

PRIMER. 

1st. It is too dark for light colored work, because 
sooner or later it will show through in spots, or 
darken the entire work. 

2d. It leaves a rough, coarse surface which the 
succeeding coats fail to completely level up. 

3d. Succeeding coats are liable to scale from 
cheap coarse ochre priming. 

PAINTING TIN ROOFS. 

When paint scales from a tin roof it is not always 
the fault of the paint. It stands the painter in hand 
to carefully examine a new tin roof before painting 
it. When the tinner uses rosin as a flux to make his 
solder flow, the rosin is melted and cools again on the 
tin. When such is the case, carefully scrape it off 
with a knife, otherwise it will be liable to scale off, 
and take the paint with it. 



Practical House Painter. 3 

When acid is used in the place of rosin it is apt to 
corrode the tin, hence it is best, if you want a per- 
manent job, to clean off the acid. To do this, first 
rub the seams with kerosene oil, then wash with soap 
suds and rinse with clean water. If the roof is quite 
new, and the tin feels greasy, go over it with a wash 
made of one pound of sal-soda to six quarts of water, 
let it stand one-half day ; then wash the tin with clear 
water. 

Instead of this method, I have given new tin a 
good rubbing with No. 1 sandpaper to make it hold 
the paint. 

ANALYSIS OF OCHRE. 

Below is an analysis of a sample of French ochre, 

which is about the average of that pigment: 

Parts. 

Hydrated oxide of iron 42 

Alumina 20 

Silica 38 

The oxide gives the color; the parts as given 
above are in the right proportion to give the most 
stable color and durable body to be found in ochre. 

Here is an ochre, which was ground in a linseed 

oil substitute, and sold to the trade at four cents per 

pound in twenty-five pound cans, and retailed to the 

painter at seven cents per pound in cans, to-wit : 

Parts. 

Barytes 58 

Whiting 15 

Oxide of iron, silicate and alumina 24i 

Chrome yellow 2i 



4 Practical House Painter. 

This so-called ochre could be ground in one-half 
the oil it would take to grind yellow ochre. 

ANOTHER. 

Parts. 

Poor chrome yellow 8 

Ochre 25 

Whiting 67 

Ground in snide oil, and sold to Jobbers at five 

cents per pound, to painters eight and ten cents. 

ANOTHER. 

Parts. 

Barytes 62.90 

Ochre 40.00 

Barytes is not ochre, and this was sold as pure 
ochre. 

ANOTHER. 

Sold as French ochre, and reecmmended for prim- 
ing: 

i-arts. 

Oxide ot iron, alumina 19.79 

Silica 40.93 

Whiting 11.57 

Barytes 26.64 

ANOTHER IN OIL. 

Parts 

Chrome yellow 12 

Whiting 25 

Barytes 63 

Oil T 13 

The markets are flooded with such imitations of 
ochre, both dry and in oil. The quantity of oil 



Practical House Painter. 5 

required to grind pure French ochre makes it high- 
priced, hence there is a motive for putting up barytes, 
which takes but little oil in grinding. 

YELLOW IRON ORE. 

Much of the so-called dry ochre on the market is 
a yelloiv. iron ore and not yellow ochre. When mixed 
in oil and put on a tin roof it will turn brown inside 
of ninety days. I presume you have had experience 
with such stuff. This makes a bad primer ; it i? very 
liable to scale. 

CRAWLING PAINT. 

When paint crawls it is because there is not suf- 
ficient adhesion between the undercoat and the new 
coat, caused usually by too much gloss on the under- 
coat. To prevent crawling subdue the gloss on the 
undercoat by sandpapering, rubbing, or by the ap- 
plication of some material which will have the de- 
sired eifect; or, if on the outside, wait until the 
gloss has been subdued by the elements. There is 
nothing more trying to one's patience than to have 
the paint let go and crawl up in bunches after it hae 
been carefully brushed out. Hence, it is well to pro- 
vide against such trouble in advance. The observing 
painter has no doubt noticed that paint is more 
liable to crawl under cornices, and upon other shel- 
tered positions, than elsewhere; hence, it is best in 
all such sheltered places, where the elements do not 



6 Practical House Painter. 

have full play, to use sufficient turpentine to prevent 
a high gloss on the undercoats. 

TO PAINT BLINDS AND NOT DAUB YOUR HANDS. 

First, have a stick to open and shut the slats with 
after you commence to paint. Second, leave a place 
on each stile, or side rail, half way between the 
hinges, six or eight inches long, unpainted, except to 
cut in the edge next the end of the slats to take hold 
of when you turn the blind over or set it aside ; also 
leave the bottom hinge unpainted. After you have 
set up the blind hold it up by the unpainted hinge 
until you finish the stiles ; then lean it up against its 
support and touch up the hinge. In this way vou 
need get no more paint on your hands than you 
would in painting a door. No time will be lost, 
because you can touch up the stiles in less time than 
it would take to wipe your hands and brush handle. 

LEGLESS STEP-LADDERS. 

Step-ladders without legs for outside work are 
good things to have on the job. Say, three of them, 
6, 8 and 10 feet long. A man of good height can 
paint 14 feet high from the 10-foot ladder. They are 
much easier on the feet than a "round" ladder. You 
can stand straighter and reach farther when standing 
on a step than you can while trying to balance on 
a round stick ; besides, a step is a handy place to set 
your pail on. 



Practical House Painter. 



SUCCESS IN PAINTING. 



Painting don't pay, eh? No wonder it don't pay, 
l)ecause here you are spending half your time growl- 
ing. The facts in the case are, "You are not up-to- 
date." If there is no possibility of making money 
at the trade, how is it that your competitor gets along 
so well? Why is it that he accumulates and you 
lose? He goes into the same market for labor, ma- 
terial and jobs that you do. He comes out every 
fall with his pockets full, and you round up poor as 
a church mouse. There must be a screw loose some- 
where in your management. Will I point one out? 
Certainly, we have always been friends, and I can 
never do too much for a friend. In the first place 
you are too impetuous. You forget for the time that 
bills for labor and material will fall due, that you 
must live — and you take the job at losing figures. 
You ought to realize that the success of a contracting 
painter depends upon his business qualifications. 
To-wit : Correct and careful estimates, coolness in 
bidding, care in selecting materials and men, sys- 
tematizing his work so as to keep each man in the 
right place. I don't know how much you are get- 
ting for this job, but it looks to me that you are 
losing money every day by using poor material and 
improper handling of your men. The good business 
man prefers the strictly pure Dutch process white 
lead to the adulterated brands. He uses pure lin- 



8 Practical House Painter. 

seed oil instead of adulterated mixtures and imita- 
tions of it, and he never loses sight of the fact that a 
good reputation is a mine of gold to him. If he finds 
a man is a good hand on a ladder or swing stage he 
keeps him there, and if he finds a man an expert at 
inside work he keeps him there, and if he finds a man 
is a poor stick in any place he lets him go, rush or no 
rush. If he has high work he provides a safe and 
easy way to get there. If he has inside work his 
step-ladders are equal to the work. He knows when 
a man has to reach too far or stand on top of a lad- 
der he can't half work. Learn to manage your 
men, to keep the right man in the right place. Stop 
making ruinous bids. Open your eyes to the fact 
that a man who makes a losing bid on a job, to beat 
his competitor, acts like an idiot, and is meaner than 
flies in paint. 

GUESSING ON WORK. 

The practice of estimating work by guess has 
brought many a painter up with a round turn in the 
fall in debt. The curious part of it is that the les- 
son is rarely, if ever, learned. Don't be too smart. 
Guessing on work is very uncertain business. 

GLASS GILDING. 

A practical expert in an English journal, the 
'Tlumber and Decorator," gives the following as his 
process acquired and tested by many years' experi- 
ence. 



Practical House Painter. 9 

The tools and materials required for glass gilding 
are the same as used for gilding in oil, excepting the 
gold size. Oil gold size would never do for glass 
work. In glass gilding the object is to get a size or 
mordant which will have the least possible tendency 
to destroy or mar the burnish of the gold leaf. This 
is absolutely necessary, when we consider that in this 
kind of work the size is before the gold, not as in oil 
gilding — behind it. For a mordant nothing can be 
better than the best isinglass. To prepare this for 
use the utmost care and cleanliness should be exer- 
cised. The water must be quite pure — free from 
grease or impurities of any kind. In preparing the 
size the following may be relied upon as a first-class 
recipe: Boil about one pint of water in a perfectly 
clean pan. Should any scum rise during the opera- 
tion remove it with a large spoon. Then add about 
as much isinglass as will lie on a dime to the boiling 
water. This is best done a little at a time to pre- 
vent it gathering in a mass before it has a chance of 
dissolving. When the isinglass is dissolved strain the 
size through a fine silk handkerchief, folded double 
or fourfold, or, better still, through some white blot- 
ting paper. This straining or filtering will remove 
any bits or impurities that may have lodged unper- 
ceived in the isinglass. When cool the mordant is 
ready for applying to the glass. Some gilders like 
to add spirit in some form — generally spirits of 
wine — to their size. Their reasons for doing this are 



10 Practical House Painter. 

not always very explicit. Some do it because they 
have seen others do it. Others add it, they say, to 
give the gold a better burnish, or to make it better 
adhere to the glass. This is a delusion. The most 
sensible reason for its use was imparted to me by a 
veteran in the trade. He used spirits of wine to 
take out or kill any slight greasiness that may have 
been in the water or isinglass. I must confess that 
until I learned this, spirits always formed part of my 
mordant, becausfe others used it. However, on fur- 
ther consideration, its use has been discarded, and, 
if anything, a better burnish on the gold is the re- 
sult. In making the size it must be borne in mind 
that the less isinglass used the brighter will be the 
gilding when completed. Of course, if too little 
be used, the gold will not adhere to the glass as it 
should, and this would cause much damage and an- 
noyance when the isinglass size was floated on again 
to proceed with the second gilding. When the size 
is too strong, or contains too much isinglass, no 
amount of burnishing will remove it altogether from 
before the gold. These are important points and 
should be carefully studied. But a little practice 
soon teaches the gilder how to arrive at the happy 
medium. 

There are a variety of purposes to which orna- 
mental glass gilding may be applied besides sign 
work, shop fronts or glass doors. It is now much 
used for show cases, window tablets, druggists' bot- 



Practical House Painter. 11 

ties, fixtures and pilasters for shop-fronts. Very 
often the design is embossed or bit into the glass, 
and worked up with gold and silver leaf, besides be- 
ing picked out in colors. This is both a crstly and 
effective method of decorating, which shall have full 
consideration in a future chapter. For the present 
it will, no doubt, be advisable to consider the simpler 
form of glass-gilding. When this is thoroughly un- 
derstood very little further instruction is needed for 
high-class work. 

For the sake of example we will suppose a glass 
slab about three feet six by twelve inches is the sub- 
ject to be treated. This is to have black letters with- 
out thickness or shadow on a gold ground. There 
are two methods of doing this. One is to first paint 
on the glass the letters with japan black and after- 
wards gild the plate. The other consists in first 
gilding the plate solid and then painting in the 
background with japan black. By this method the 
lettering is left untouched. The gold on these is 
then washed off, the edges trimmed, and the letters 
themselves painted black or any other desired color. 
This latter is, perhaps, the most satisfactory. How- 
ever, a few lines of explanation will be devoted to 
each process. 

First in order comes a plate, the letters on which 
are painted with japan black previous to gilding. 
To the learner, no doubt, the plain block letters will 
prove an attraction, because of their simplicity. This 



12 Practical House Painter. 

should be set out correctly on a sheet of lining paper. 
It will only be necessary to run in an outline of 
the letters. When completed to the satisfaction of 
the operator it may be pasted round the edges and 
fixed on the face of the glass. The back of the 
glass, that is the side upon which the work is done, 
should be quite clean. When the plate is fixed on an 
easel or stand, which is the most convenient place 
for working, the letters will, of course, read back- 
wards. In this form they must be painted. When 
quite dry and hard, should the outlines of the let- 
ters be irregular, they may be set right in a very 
simple manner. All that is required to accom- 
plish this is a metal straightedge and a sharp 
quarter inch joiner's chisel. The straightedge is laid 
across the tops and bottoms of the letters and the 
chisel is employed to cut them sharp and true. The 
sides of the straight letters are then similarly treated ; 
curves must be perfected with a writing-pencil. The 
paper may now be taken from the face of the glass 
and the plate examined all over. Should any 
specks of black be found on it they must be re- 
moved before the gilding is gone on with. The 
smallest speck shows up before the gold-leaf. If 
convenient, before gilding, have the plate fixed at 
an angle of about 45 degrees. While in this posi- 
tion take a flat gilder's mop and float the isinglass 
size over the glass. Then take up the cushion, take 
out a few leaves of gold from the book, and whilst 



Practical House Painter. 13 

the glass is wet cover it with gold, lifting the gold 
from the cushion as described in the last chapter. 
If possible lift a whole leaf at once, but should 
this at first prove troublesome try half a leaf. Keep 
the glass wet with the size and overlap slightly each 
successive leaf of gold until the whole of the glass 
is covered. 

The glass must now dry before it can be re- 
gilded, and must then be gently rubbed with the 
finest cotton wool. It is an easy matter to ascer- 
tain whether it is dry or not. When wet the gold, 
if looked at from the front of the glass, has a dead 
look, but if dry it shows up bright. If possible 
leave the plate till next day before giving it a sec- 
ond coat of gold. The advantage of this delay is 
obvious. The gold has time to get hard, which ma- 
terially reduces the risk of its being removed when 
a second application of size is necessary. 

To the novice it will, no doubt, appear at first sight 
both a waste of time and gold to gild all over the 
work again, but if the plate be held up to the light 
it will show many imperfections in the shape of 
small holes, cracks and imperfect joinings. An- 
other coat of size floated on and another layer of 
gold over the whole of the Work should turn out 
a so far satisfactory finish. Let the glass dry 
again and be subjected to a further examination for 
faulty places. Should any be found cover them 
with more gold. But if the work is satisfactory it 



14 Practical House Painter. 

is ready for the burnishing process. The first stage 
is to polish the gold by gently rubbing with fine cot- 
ton wool, care being taken not to scratch the gold. 
This is, of course, only a repetition of the polishing 
after the first layer of gold. 

There are several methods in general use for ob- 
taining that brilliant burnish so much admired in 
glass gilding. But the one that meets with most 
favor and success is what is called the "hot water 
burnish.^^ It will be advisable to practice on the 
glass under consideration. After the cotton wool 
polishing is completed warm the glass either by hold- 
ing it before a fire or gently pouring warm water over 
it. This is only a precaution against breakage by 
sudden expansion. Now let it dry, and while warm 
polish again with the cotton wool. Repeat the pour- 
ing of water, hotter than the last, and when the 
glass is dry, after this operation, gently rub it again 
with cotton wool. This hot water flushing should 
be carried on until the burnish is quite satisfactory. 
But it must be very carefully done, else the gold runs 
a risk of being washed off in patches. 

HOW TO ESTIMATE WORK. 

Measure your work with the tape-line and be sure 
you get all there is in it; projections, depressions, 
mouldings, edges, etc. 

Many a painter has dropped his profits by not 
taking in these little particulars. Every bead, sunken 



Practical House Painter. 15 

or raised panel makes an edge to paint. The edges 
of ordinary weather boarding add ten per cent, to 
the surface, to say nothing of the edges of the cor- 
ner boards and window and door casings — the pro- 
jections and depressions in the panels of an ordinary 
fonr-paneled door, add at least ten per cent, to the 
surface to be painted. Then let me say to you 
again, look closely for edges, projections, depressions, 
hollows and rounds. They all count when you paint 
them; and it is your fault if they are not included 
in the estimate. When you have multiplied the num- 
ber of feet around a house by the average height and 
reduced it to yards you have only made a start. 
Measure the cornice, follow the hollows, rounds and 
edges with the line. There is lots of surface in 
mouldings. The tape-line is good as far as you can 
make it go, but it can't do it all. You must use 
judgment in connection with it; and carefully esti- 
mate the condition of the work, what per cent, is slow 
to paint, or high and difficult to reach. For instance, 
what is the condition of the surface, is it porous and 
full of cracks ? Is every joint gaping for putty ? Is 
the putty on the windows rough and broken? Is 
the old paint cracked, blistered and scaling? Is the 
cornice ornamented with dentils, brackets and 
panels ? You may lose a day or a week of extra time 
on a high tower or cupola if you fail to put it into 
your estimate as extra hard to reach. Make the price 
accordingly. Are the blind-slats stuck fast and dif- 



16 Practical House Painter. 

ficult to paint ? Is the work to be done in the busy 
season when labor and material are high priced and 
good men are hard to get ; or in the dull season, when 
dealers will cut prices and good men are hunting 
for work? Bidding on specifications must be done 
with care. You can figure the number of yards to 
be painted, but there are many points which the com- 
pleted job can alone disclose. A provision in your 
contract to cover all changes in specifications comes 
mighty handy on the day of final settlement. It is 
not safe to make anything like a close bid on speci- 
fications, until the following questions have been set- 
tled and put in your contract. To-wit : Will the 
building be delivered to you at a specified time, fin- 
ished and cleaned out and put in good condition for 
the painter ; or will you be expected to commence be- 
fore the work is finished and paint as the work is put 
up, and spend as much time dusting and sweeping 
as you do at painting? Will the machine-dressed 
lumber, including mouldings, doors, window-stops, 
etc., be put in as it comes from the factory rough and 
fuzzy, or will it be redressed and made smooth and 
ready for the paint? These points may look to you 
like small matters, but they count when 3^ou come to 
paint the work. If you are to do a fine job stipulate 
in your contract that the wood-work, etc., shall be 
finished in good shape. If you are to paint the work 
as you find it have it so stated in your contract. Paste 
this motto in the top of your hat and read it often : 



Practical House Painter. 17 

"It is always better to lose a job tban to get it and 
lose money on it." 

Two houses may be of equal dimensions, yet it 
may be worth 50 per cent, more to paint one than the 
other; hence any definite scale of prices for work by 
the yard is liable to be misleading. We may deter- 
mine by the line how much there is of the work, but 
we must rely upon our judgment and experience to 
determine how much it will cost to do it. 

ONE WAY TO MEASURE A JOB. 

Find the surface measure of the entire job, in- 
cluding all edges and projections, and estimate how 
much it is worth per yard, on the basis that it is all 
plain work, easy to get at. Next we will proceed by 
what we may call special measurement. Suppose the 
cornice measures 60 yards, and is finished with 
blocks, moulded panels and brackets, and we estimate 
that the cost of painting it will be three times that 
of a plain cornice, hence we will add two measures 
or 120 yards to the general or first measurement. 
Next, suppose each window and casing measures 
three yards, and there are 20 of them to be trimmed 
in colors, we estimate the work of painting them 
double that of plain work; hence we add to our 
special measurement 60 yards. If there is a cupola 
high and difficult to reach we estimate that it will 
be worth double the cost of painting ordinary work 
to do it. Say, it measures 50 yards, we will add 



18 Practical House Painter. 

50 yards to the general measurement, and so we will 
go on until we have taken in all parts of the work 
which will cost more than ordinary plain work. 

To illustrate: The building measures 600 yards, 
and as plain work we estimate it worth twenty cents 
per yard to paint it. We amount our special meas- 
urement which we will say adds up to 300 yards, 
which added to the 600 yards general measurement, 
makes 900, which at twenty cents per yard, makes 
$180. The same system may be used inside. 

TO SOFTEN HARD^ LUMPY PUTTY. 

Break the putty into lumps ; put it in a kettle with 
enough water to cover it ; add a little raw oil, and boil 
and stir well while hot. The putty will absorb the 
oil ; pour off the water, let the putty cool, then work 
it, and your putty will be as good as new. 

TACKY PAINT ON CHURCH SEATS, ETC. 

During my experience as a painter, T have been 
called upon to repaint tacky seats in at least half 
a dozen churches. Such seats are an unmitigated 
nuisance. Tacky paint may be the result of putting 
too much japan in oil paint, or of using fat oil, or 
paint which had been mixed a long time, especially 
if it had very much japan in it, or by mixing oil and 
varnish, or by putting varnish on oil paint, especially 
if the paint had not been given time to dry hard 
before it was varnished. To harden tacky paint try 



Practical House Painter. 19 

this: Take one part japan and three parts of tur- 
pentine, and give the work a coat of the mixture. 
That will usually effect a cure, unless the paint is 
soft clear to the wood. A coat of shellac will some- 
times^ do the work all right. Such seats usually 
seem all right until warmed by the heat of the body ; 
hence we may be satisfied that the fault is in the 
oil used in the paint or varnish. It is best on that 
account to use but little if any oil when painting 
seats of any kind. Coat up with color ground in 
japan and thinned with turps ; varnish the part which 
comes in contact with the body with shellac varnish. 

I have painted seats this wa}^, and never heard of 
any further trouble with them. 

To repaint tacky seats the best way is to burn off 
the old paint, and coat up as above ; because, if a hard 
drying paint is put over the old soft paint it is liable 
to crack. It is well, however, to see if the turpentine 
and japan will work a cure, or if a coat of shellac 
will stop the trouble. To do this it is well to first 
experiment on one seat, or upon a small surface. 

I have killed tacky paint by rubbing it with a 
cloth wet with ammonia; when dry, try it, and see 
if the "tack" is gone ; if not, go over it again ; when 
dry, put on a coat of shellac varnish ; this is a pretty 
sure cure. 

TESTING JAPAN. 

If japan smells of benzine don't buy it. Mix it 
with clear oil; if it curdles, you don't want it. Mix 



20 Practical House Painter. 

drop black with some of it; as stiff as good drop 
black ground in japan; then thin with turps and 
make a painting test, to see if it is a good binder. 
To see if it will crack, paint on glass, let it dry and 
hold the glass between your eye and the light. If 
you see fine cracks don't buy any of it. 

When 3'OU go to buy japan, ask the dealer v.ho 
made it. If he don't know, make up your mind at 
once that it is a fatherless waif without a name, 
and likely to be worthless. When a man makes a 
good thing he is apt to send his name along with it 
as an advertisement. This applies to all material. 
There is a great deal of bad japan on the market, 
and a great amount of work ruined by it. Buy 
none unless it bears the brand of a reputable maker 
and will stand these tests. 

I do not need to tell the practical painter that there 
is a great amount of bad japan on the market, and 
that a great deal of paint is ruined by it. Buy no 
japan unless the can bears the name of some reputa- 
ble manufacturer, and will stand the above tests. 

WHY DO PAINTS AND VARNISHES CRACK? 

The following paper was read by Mr. A. P. Sweet, 
o± Zona, Mich., at a meeting of master car painters : 

SUBJECT : 

"Tf/ji/ do paints and varnishes crack, and what is 
the reason that cracks in the latter are usually at 
right angles to the grain of the wood?" 



Practical House Painter. 21 

The subject, as I understand it, relates to the 
cracking of varnishes, etc., as experienced in connec- 
tion with passenger car work, and as such I introduce 
it for discussion before this association. 

There are many theories as to the cause of the 
cracking of paints and varnishes. Some are well de- 
fined, others are not satisfactorily explained. 

I do not anticipate being able to add much to what 
is already known, but will advance a few thoughts, 
which may call forth the views of others on the sub- 
ject. 

The old adage, "It takes two to make a quarrel,'' 
is as true when applied to paints and varnishes as it 
is to individuals. A single coat of either seldom, if 
ever, produces cracks. These make their appearance 
only after two or more coats have been applied ; con- 
sequently, it is necessary to have a body of color or 
varnish, consisting of two or more coats, before any 
trouble of this kind makes itself manifest. 

This being the case, it follows that the cause of 
the difficulty must be sought for in the coatings 
themselves, either in the quality of the material 
employed or in the mode of applying them. 

Poor and cheap oils and japans — especially the 
latter — are a fruitful source of cracking in paint; 
but by far the most prolific one, in my opinion, is 
the hurried application of the succeeding coats before 
the preceding ones are dry enough to receive them. 



22 Practical House Painter. 

If sufficient time is not given, cracks will inevitably 
follow such a mode of procedure. 

I am of the opinion, also, that very little blame 
can be attached to the wood used in the construction 
of cars, as most of it is comparatively well seasoned, 
and its expansive and contractive force is not suffi- 
cient to cause serious trouble. If green wood was 
used there might be room for this excuse, especially 
where the cracks run in the direction of the grain, 
and are large and deep. 

Before pursuing this subject further, it may be 
well to examine a little into the theory of the drying 
of paint. It is purely a chemical process, not a me- 
chanical one, as some suppose. Paint dries by the 
evaporation of its volatile parts and its absorption 
of oxygen; it is heavier when dried than when in 
the liquid form, having attached to itself a sufficient 
amount of oxygen to very perceptibly increase tlie 
weight some 6 per cent. 

The best grades of linseed oil are said to contain 
from 70 to 80 per cent of substance called linoleine, 
a resinous and slow-drying oil and acid which im- 
parts to the oil its elasticity. 

In the process of drying, contraction occurs. The 
various atoms of which the coatings are composed 
move closer and closer together ; and as this con- 
tracting force is easier with than across the grain, 
cracks at right angles to it are formed. This fact 
suggests the necessity of so adjusting the elasticity 



Practical House Painter. 23 

of the various coats that the force exerted in drying 
may be as nearly equalized as possible, as their con- 
tracting force is continued until all elasticity has left 
the paint and oxygen ceases to be absorbed, all the 
oil acid has disappeared, and nothing but a hard, 
brittle surface remains. 

Under the microscope, in the first stage of crack- 
ing, the surface presents nothing unusual except that 
the cracks appear clean cut and sharp on the edges. 
As months pass by and the surface is exposed to the 
atmospheric changes of heat and cold, wet and dry, 
the cracks become more numerous; and in the last 
stage, when the oil is entirely destroyed, the surface 
assumes the appearance of innumerable rectangular 
masses, higher in the center than at the edges, like 
small mounds raised by the process of contraction 
and adhesion. 

Cracking in color coats may, by careful attention 
to preliminaries, be reduced to a minimum, pro- 
vided good first-class materials are used and sufficient 
time is given to each coat to dry. 

Where varnish is to be applied as a finish, all coat- 
ings should have oil in their composition and yet be 
mixed to dry flat. They should be applied very 
evenly and thinly, even if it necessitates an extra 
coat, to cover and make a solid job. 

Striping and ornamenting should be done on flat 
color, which gives time for hardening, and fits it for 



24 Practical House Painter. 

the varnish coats to follow. If work is done in this 
way, I think very little fear of premature cracking 
need be entertained; at least, not until time and 
weather have sufficient opportunity to play havoc with 
its beauty, and natural decay of the materials them- 
selves necessitates a thorough overhauling and repair- 
ing. 

Rubbing varnishes are another source of trouble, 
causing the succeeding coats of finishing varnish to 
show signs of cracking long before they otherwise 
would, as it does not agree with the slower drying 
varnishes usually applied above it, being of a harder 
and more brittle character, serving the purpose of 
producing a fine, smooth surface, but sacrificing the 
durability of the job. 

Concerning the cracking of varnish, I have not 
much to say. It seems to me that many of the rea- 
sons given above will apply to it as well as to the 
paint. 

Poor material in the shape of varnish is poor in- 
deed. A first-class article only will give first-class 
results. 

It must be elastic, or it will crack easily and badly, 
no matter how good the under coats of paint may be. 

Good varnish on good color coats will not give 
any signs of cracking until, by repeated varnishings, 
it has accumulated a thick coating of brittle, unelas- 
tic gum. 



Practical House Painter, 25 

No painter can say truthfully that his cars never 
crack, as it is a natural consequence of decay, and 
will come, sooner or later, to the best of material. 

That varnish cracks to a great extent at right 
angles to the grain of the vi^ood, I think is due, in 
some degree, to the same reasons as given above for 
the cracking of paint, and after its elasticity is de- 
stroyed by age. Vibration has a great effect upon 
the hard and brittle coating of gum that remains, 
coupled with expansion and contraction caused by 
variations of temperature and the disintegrating in- 
fluences of the weather. 

BRUSH CLEANING TROUGH. 

To make such a trough, take a piece of planed 
board, 6 inches wide and 18 inches long, and nail on 
side pieces 2 inches wide; this makes the trough. 
Nail this trough on a bench, box, or table, and let one 
end of it project over the edge of the bench, box or 
table, and place your slush bucket under the project- 
ing end of the trough. To clean a brush, lay it in 
the trough, keep hold of the handle with one hand 
and with the other take a dull scraper and press the 
paint out of the brush and shove it off into the slush- 
bucket. The advantage of this method is that you 
clean the whole length of the brush and save the 
paint, instead of daubing it on the walls of your 
shop. 



26 Practical House Painter. 

FLOOR WAX. 

A good preparation for waxing floors may be 

obtained as follows : 

Yellow Wax 25 oz. 

Yellow Ceresin 25 oz. 

Burnt Sienna 5 oz. 

Boiled Linseed Oil 1 oz. 

Turpentine 1 gill 

Melt the wax and ceresin at a gentle heat, then 
add the sienna previously well triturated with the 
boiled linseed oil, and mix well. When the mixture 
begins to cool add the oil of turpentine, or so much 
of it as is required to make a mass of the consistence 
of an ointment. 

The burnt sienna may be used in smaller or larger 
quantity, according to the tint desired, or may be 
replaced by raw sienna, etc. 

DAMAR VARNISH. 

'N'ever use damar varnish over oil paint. 

Never put oil in damar varnish. See to it that 
your dealer does not draw it into an oil measure, and 
that you do not keep it in an oily or rancid can. 
Why? BeeauRe it is liable to dry tacky under any 
of the above conditions. 

STENCIL STAINING. 

Ordinary plain staining can be done by almost any 
one who can handle a common paint brush. Yet it 
is not generally known, even to skilled decorators, 
that stain, on sound white wood, evenly planed, can 



Practical House Painter. 27 

be applied to imitate the most intricate of artistic 
desigtis; such, however, is the case. A decorator 
if asked to imitate in stain on white wood a piece of 
parquetry or inlaid wood, might reply that such a 
thing was impossible, alleging as a reason that by 
employing liquid stain in the same way as a distem- 
per — that is to say, by the aid of a stencil to repro- 
duce the pattern — the stain, as soon as it became ab- 
sorl)ed would be found to "run," and so giving to the 
pattern imitated an indistinct or blurred edge. Yet 
the most elaborate patterns are successfully stenciled 
direct on to pine, and the figured work on this wood 
has invariably come out distinctly and naturally as 
to be almost indistinguishable from the inlaid work 
they have so successfully sought to imitate. The 
great difficulty to be overcome in stenciling with 
stains is undoubtedly the "running," but with a very 
little care and patience this can be easily obviated. 
Say a painter has a border to stain round an ordinary 
pine floor in imitation of a selected pattern of par- 
quetry, the colors of which are generally in two or 
more shades of oak, the first thing he has to do after 
having properly prepared the floor — namely, making 
the part to be stained as smooth and as even as pos- 
sible by filling up the crevices and nail holes — is to 
stain over the work in the lightest shade shown in 
his pattern; this can be done by diluting the ordi- 
nary liquid oak stain with water to the desired tint. 
Next let him cut out of a piece of lining, paper in 



28 Practical House Painter. 

the form of a stencil — the pattern he has to repro- 
duce on the floor — care being taken to oil the stencil 
in order to strengthen and preserve it. He should 
then mix the stain into a stiff paste or to the con- 
sistency of a distemper used for ordinary stenciling; 
place a portion of this mixture on a smooth piece 
of wood, take up a very small quantity of it on a 
stencil brush and apply through the stencil plate in 
the same way he would a distemper. If a very dark 
shade is required apply more stain before removing 
the stencil plate. 

PAINTING BRICK. 

Objections: Chipping of the brick, and scaling of 
the paint. 

The chipping may be on account of defective brick 
or otherwise. 

Scaling may be caused by poor paint, or by damp- 
ness in the hrick. 

When called upon to paint brick, first see if the 
brick is dry. See that there is no place where water 
leaks in from the roof or cornice and soaks into the 
brick. A brick wall may look dry and still be damp 
inside. If you want paint to stay on brick, give the 
brick time to dry, after heavy and driving rains. It 
is always a bad plan to paint brick in the fall, after 
the autumn rains. The only real safe time to paint a 
brick wall is in summer, after a spell of hot, dry 
weather. You can not always wait for that, but you 
can tell the owner that it is unsafe to paint a brick 



Practical House Painter. 2S 

Wall until it has had time to dry. Why ? Because in 
winter the moisture, which is shut in by the paint, 
will freeze, expand and throw off the paint or chip the 
brick. 

Prime brick w^ork with a thin coat of good paint 
mixed in pure linseed oil. Flow on the priming 
freely, and brush it well into the brick; for second 
coat, whatever paint you use, put in at least one- 
fourth white lead; make this coat one-third turps, 
and rub it well out. Give it a good body. For the 
last coat, use your color regardless of lead, unless 
you' want it in to get your color. If you want a 
gloss, mix this coat with all boiled oil, and flow on. 
For flat, if your colors are ground in oil, use one- 
fourth oil and three-fourths turps, and if it don't 
show fiat when painted, it will flat in a short time. 
The last coat may admit of more oil or may not take 
as much, and flat. This depends upon the work 
when started, etc. Some painters make brick flating 
by breaking up the pigment in japan, and elastic 
varnish for a binder, and thin with turps. I prefer 
the oil for a binder, and have made the last coat 
one-half oil, and had a nice flat in a few weeks. I 
always ridicule the idea of painting brick flat, be- 
cause it will not stand as long as an oil finish, and 
the oil finish will be flat enough in a few months. 

, CLEANING UP A ROOM. 

Now, if I were going to teach a boy to clean up a 
room, the first thing would be how to prepare himself 



30 Practical House Painter. 

for the job. In the first place, he wants a damp 
sponge with a string through it to tie over his head, 
to hold the sponge over his mouth and under the nose 
to catch the dust, because it is a great deal more pleas- 
ant and a "sight" more healthful to carry lime and 
other dust in a sponge than in nostrils and windpipe. 
Then he wants a cotton cloth cap, large enough to 
draw down over his head and ears, bib overalls and 
jacket to button close about the neck and he is well 
fixed. In such a rig he may look peculiar, but he had 
better look like a monkey than to skin his nostrils 
with dust and fill his ears and hair with lime, sand 
and sawdust. 

For tools, he needs a good, new, fine corn broom, a 
wide bristle sweeper (a ten or twelve-inch paper- 
hanger's smoothing brush will do), a good duster, 
a sharp tool to pick out corners, a two-inch chiseled 
brush for corners. A sprinkler only turns dust to 
mud, to dry in a few hours and become dust again. 
When you have swept the floor with your broom and 
dusted your woodwork and gone over the floor care- 
fully with your wide bristle brush to take what you 
brushed from the casings and what the broom left 
on the floor, look at the air across this ray of sun- 
light ; it is full of dust, soon the most of it will set- 
tle on the floor and casings and window stools. What 
then? Wait till it settles and ivipe it off luith a cloth 
and don't forget the tops of the doors and casings. 
"Why use a cloth ?" Well, if you go in and begin to 



Practical House Painter. 31 

use a dust brush after the dust settles you throw a 
portion of it in the air again and it will settle on the 
work. And by the way, I want to say that a wiping 
cloth is a very important article for a painter to carry. 
It always makes me "red hot" to see a painter ( ?), 
after he has daubed a key shield or a hinge, try to 
wipe it off with his thumb; I could forgive him for 
the daub; the best man in the trade may sometimes 
do that, but the man who will rub part of it off v\^ith 
his thumb and let the rest dry ought to be sent off the 
job or suspended long enough to take a lesson in 
the art of wiping off daubs. 

I want to say further that every well regulated 
dusting kit ought to have a dust pan hitched to it 
in some way. It will save sweeping the dust out on 
tlie steps to be tracked in again, save the time you 
would lose in sweeping the dust over thresholds, or 
save the time it would take to borrow one. 

PASTE FOR LABELING ON TIN. 

IMake a stiff flour paste in the usual way, with 
flour and water, then add 2 ounces tartaric acid, and 
1 pint of molasses ; boil the mixture until stiff, and 
put in ten or fifteen drops carbolic acid. 

ANOTHER. 

Wheat flour 1 pound 

Alum • 2 drams 

Borax 2 drams 

Hydrochloric acid li ounces 

Mix the flour, alum and borax in the usual way. 



32 Practical House Painter. 

to a smooth paste in water, then add the acid and 
cook in the usual way with hot water. 

TO MAKE TENTS, ETC., WEATHERPROOr. 

To prevent tents, wagon covers, etc., from rotting 
dissolve 4 ounces sulphate of zinc in 10 gallons of 
water, then put in one-fourth pound sal-soda, stir 
well until dissolved and add one-fourth ounce tartaric 
acid. Let the cloth lie in this one day and night and 
hang up to dry. Don't wring it. 

TO PAINT ON CANVAS OR MUSLIN WITHOUT SIZING. 

First stretch, then wet the cloth. Wipe off the 
drops and letter while the cloth is damp with color 
mixed with japan and turps. 

TO PAINT ON ZINC. 

A difficulty is often experienced in causing oil 
colors to adhere to sheet zinc. Boettger recommends 
the employment of a mordant, so to speak, of the 
following composition : 1 part of chloride of copper, 
1 of nitrate of copper and 1 of sal-ammoniac are to 
be dissolved in 64 parts of water, to which solution 
is to be added 1 part of commercial hydrochloric 
acid. The sheets of zinc are to be brushed over with 
this liquid, which gives them a deep black color ; in 
the course of 12 to 24 hours they become dry, and to 
their now dirty gray surface a coat of any oil color 
will firmly adhere. Some sheets of zinc prepared in 
this way, and afterwards painted, have been found 
to withstand all the changes of winter and summer. 



Practical House Painter. 33 

PAINTING BLINDS. 

When painting a blind never turn it upon edge 
when cutting in the inside of the rail, because the 
paint will be likely to run into the pivot-holes and 
stick the slats. When you set a blind up to dry, set 
the bottom end up, and be sure to have the slats lie 
flat side up. Why? Because the bottom end of the 
blind when hung is more apt to drag on the window 
sill than the top end is to touch the jam above. If 
set bottom end up, that end will dry solid and if 
there are any sags it will be at the top. Keep the 
slats flat side up to avoid flat edges. 

TREATMENT FOR HARDWOOD FLOORS. 

First see that the floor is clean and smooth; then 
give it a coat of best oil, with japan sufficient to make 
it dry ; cut the japan in turps. Then put on a good 
mineral paste, filler in the usual way by rubbing the 
filler well into the wood; then clean off all the sur- 
plus. When dry, sandpaper and putty up well with 
colored, hard putty, and put on a coat of shellac; if 
too glossy, rub down with powdered pumice and oil. 
Be careful to have the putty match the floor. 

WHITEWASH FOR OUTSIDE WORK. 

Take one-half pound of fresh burnt lime. Dip it 
in water and let it slack in the open air. Melt two 
ounces of bagundy pitch by gentle heat, in six ounces 
of linseed oil ; then add two quarts of skim-milk 
while the lime is hot, add the mixture of pitch and 



34 Practical House Painter. 

oil, a little at a time while hot, and stir it in; then 
add three pounds of bolted whiting and stir. Add 
more milk if too thick for the brush. 

THE STRAINER. 

Don't forget to use the strainer. After you have 
put in your best licks to clean up and sandpaper a 
job, it is the height of folly to daub it up with paint 
full of skins and specks. Oil paint is liable to be 
"skinny" in the keg. Miller's bolting cloth makes 
a good strainer, and common cheese cloth at five cents 
a yard does very well for ordinary purposes. 

TO KILL GREASE SPOTS ON WOOD. 

Use a wash of saltpeter or a thin lime wash, then 
rinse with clear water. Treat blacksmith's smoke in 
the same way. 

KALSOMINE. 

To please an old friend I give the following recipe 
for kalsomine. He says it is good. I never used it, 
so you will have to take his word for it. 

Fifteen pounds good paris white, mixed up in luke- 
warm water, add one-fourth pound good glue, dis- 
solved in the usual way, strain through a fine sieve, 
then dissolve one-fourth pound white hard soap in 
hot water and one-half pound of alum in cold water 
and mix. Add water to give the right consistency 
for putting it on the wall. 



Practical House Painter. 35 

TO TAKE OFF THE PAINT. 

If you have an old, roughly painted door to cut 
down for a fine job, don't fool away your time, and 
fill your nose with dust, trying to do it with dry sand- 
paper, but take the door off its hinges, lay it flat on 
horses, and keep the surface under your sandpaper 
wet with benzine, and you can do in an hour what 
would otherwise take half a day. The benzine softens 
the paint, and keeps the paper from gumming up. 
If it is not practicable to take the door off the 
hinges, put your benzine in a small spring-bottomed 
oil can and squirt it on the work as needed to keep 
the paper clear of paint and make it cut fast. Wipe 
off the loose paint with rags. It works equally well 
on old varnish. Try it once on an old carriage body. 

If the old paint is extra hard use a mixture in 
equal parts of benzine and ammonia. 

CLEANING SILVER^ BRASS OR COPPER. 

In the course of our work we often meet with 
tarnished metal ornaments, which must be cleaned to 
make our work look well. 

This preparation is a good one: 

Paris white ( fine ) 1 pound 

Carb. magnesia 2 drama 

Cyanuret potash 7 drama 

Sulph. ether 3 drams 

Crocus martis 1 dram 

Soft water li ounces 

or sufficient to make a stiff paste. 



36 Practical House Painter. 

Mix by nibbing, add the paris white last, then stir 
into the water. Apply with a rag or sponge, and rub 
dry and polish with a rag or canton flannel. 

WHY DO WALL PAPERS CRACK? 

Some papers are more inclined to crack than 
others, because they are made of more brittle mate- 
rial. When selecting a paper for a whitewashed wall 
or ceiling, take a pattern which feels soft and pliable. 
Papers which crackle or rattle when crumpled in 
the hand arc liable to crack. Papers which stretch or 
expand the most when wet are the most apt to crack ; 
because when they dry and shrink the pull is so 
great that the fibers give away, if great care is not 
taken in putting it on. Cracking may be the fault 
of the paper hanger. He may use his paste too 
thick, or too thin, or put on too much or too little. 
Paste should be put on even and of the proper con- 
sistency and thickness to cement the paper to the 
walls. Paper is more liable to crack on rough anJ 
uneven walls. On a smooth wall, if properly put on, 
it becomes, as it dries, so fastened to the plaster that 
it cannot contract enough to break the fibers, but on 
a rough and uneven wall there are apt to be loose 
places where the air gets in, and the contraction of 
the paper so weakens the fibers that it cracks. 

Now, if the paper hanger will be careful to secure 
the paper uniformly by using sufficient paste on 
rough places to hold the paper, and be careful to 



Practical House Painter. 37 

brush or pound the paper down firmly, he will greatly 
reduce the chances of cracking. A roller can not 
be depended upon for a rough wall. Too much or 
not enough sizing on a wall may be a cause of crack- 
ing. Hot paste, which thickens as it cools, is not 
safe to use on such walls, because it may appear just 
right when hot but will be too thick when cool and 
cause the paper to crack. 

OIL SIZE FOR WHITEWASH. 

Oil size is good to use on a whitewashed ceiling 
before papering if you don't overdo it. A friend of 
mine thought, if a little was good, a great deal would 
be better ; so he gave his ceiling two flowing coats of 
clear oil, and when dry put on his paper, but it did 
not stay. Why? Because he put on so much oil 
that he made a glossy surface and the gloss could not 
hold the paste. An oil size on whitewash is all right 
if used right. It is a mistake to use clear oil; 1 
pint of oil, 1 pint japan and 1 quart turpentine is 
better, because it will penetrate further, dry faster, 
flat the surface, and have sufficient binding power 
to hold the whitewash from coming off. Don't size 
a wall with paste. Paste and whitewash don't go 
well together. The fact that you have to size your 
wall to make paper stick proves this. 

Oil size should dry hard before the paper is put 
on. 

I find glutol, manufactured by the Arabol Manu- 



38 Practical House Painter. 

facturing Co., No. 13 Gold street, New York, a first- 
class substitute for glue in wall size and kalsomine, 
and prefer it to glue, because it will not attract flies, 
nor spoil by standing in hot weather, and can be 
mixed in cold water. 

TO CLEAN BRICK. 

The white powder which conies on brick can be 
removed by sponging with a mixture of muriatic 
acid and water, equal parts. Wash the brick in clear 
water and let them become well dried before painting. 

TO CLEAN TARNISHED ZINC. 

Mix 1 part sulphuric acid with 12 parts water and 
rub the zinc with it with a rag, then rinse with clear 
water. 

TO GILD ON WOOD. 

First get a good body and a smooth surface. The 
work should be flat with three coats at least on wood, 
and not less than two on iron or tin. The best size 
for outside work is oil gold size (fat oil), mixed with 
a little medium chrome yellow toned down with white 
lead ; put in a very little japan gold size, and thin to 
workable consistency with turps; let it stand until 
tacky. It must be hard enough to prevent rubbing up 
or sweating. The method with the tip, gold knife and 
cushion requires considerable dexterity as well as 
practice to do good and rapid work. The tip, or lifter, 
is only a few camel hairs glued between two pieces of 



Practical House Painter. 39 

paste board, or other material. The knife is a long 
narrow flexible blade, and the cushion is made on a 
block, 6 by 8 inches, first covered with a thickness or 
two of woolen cloth, and finished by stretching a piece 
of chamois skin over it. Hold the gold book in the 
left hand, and turn back a leaf of the book, leaving 
the gold exposed on the next leaf; press the leaf of 
gold againt the cushion and it will remain. Then 
straighten out wrinkles by a slight puff of the breath 
from above, cut the leaf into the required size with 
the gold-knife, and lift the leaf to its place with the 
tip. The tip will lift the gold better if occasionally 
drawn over the hair of your head. 

Another way to prepare the leaf: Cut the book 
through at the binding with a sharp knife, which will 
leave all the leaves free and separate. Now take up 
the top paper or cover, which will leave the gold leaf 
on the book ; lay the paper on a board and rub it over 
with a piece of wax, paraffine candle, or a piece of 
hard soap ; either will do. Place the waxed side on 
to the gold, and smooth the paper down gently; 
repeat until you have as many leaves prepared as you 
need. Then, with good sharp shears cut them in such 
shape and size as will best cover your work, and not 
waste the gold. Lay the pieces on your board, gold 
side up. When ready, lay the pieces on the work, rub 
down with the fingers, or a ball of cotton, take off the 
paper and the gold will stay on the size. In this way 
the gold adheres quite firmly to the waxed paper, and 



40 Practical House Painter. 

the size must have a strong tack to take the gold off 
the paper. Experts lay the leaf directly from the 
book, and you had best learn to do it that way for 
general work/ if you spoil half a dozen books while 
catching on to the knack of it. Try it this way: 
Now, here is a stripe half an inch wide, and the size 
is ready for the gold. Now hold the book flat in 
your left hand with your thumb on top, hold the top 
paper firm with your thumb. (If you let it slip, the 
leaf under it will be spoiled.) If the stripe is one- 
half inch wide, turn back enough of the paper to ex- 
pose three-fourths of an inch of the gold leaf, crease 
the turned back cover down with the fingers of the 
right hand, and hold it with the thumb on the back. 
Now cut the leaf with the finger-nail, first rubbing it 
dry on your pants; then turn the book carefully 
and quickly over on to the stripe, and press the gold 
down gently by pressing the book. Then turn down 
more of the paper, and repeat until that leaf is gone ; 
then take another and so on. If the book gets too 
limber towards the last to handle well, have a square 
of cardboard to lay under the book next to the hand ; 
you will find this is a help even with a full book. 
You will, perhaps, waste more gold in this way than 
by the transfer method, but you will more than 
make it up in time, if you become expert. 

1st. Be sure of a good foundation. 

2d. ITave your gold size right, and study to know 
when the tackiness is just right. If your surface is 



Practical House Painter. 41 

not perfectly free from tackiness, pounce with a bag 
of gilder's whiting before putting on the size, to keep 
the gold from sticking outside of the size. 

When you lay the leaf from the book and cut the 
leaf with your finger nail, turn the ball of the finger 
toward you and the nail towards the gold, and run 
the nail close to the edge of the turned paper ; then, 
if the nail is not too long, the end of the finger will 
hold down the paper while the nail cuts the leaf. 

To prepare paper for the transfer method I rub 
the paper on my hair, then lay it on the gold leaf, 
gently rub it with my finger tips, and the leaf ad- 
heres to the paper. 

It can then be cut with shears in any desired shape 
to cover the work. 

Some gold leaf is now packed in paper so prepared 
that the leaf will adhere to one side of it and can be 
taken up in that way. 

Some gilders take up the leaf by wetting the paper 
on the back with turpentine to make the leaf adhere 
to the other side, when it can be cut to the required 
shape with shears. This is done instead of waxing 
the paper. 

STIR YOUR PAINT. 

It isn't always your material that makes a bad job, 
but it seems an easy matter to make even the best of 
paint the scapegoat for bad work. The heedless work- 



42 Practical House Painter. 

man who primes a plastered wall without sweeping 
down the loose sand, or is careless about taking the 
sand and dust from the tops of casings and the floors, 
will, if he stops to examine, find some in the brush 
and some of it in his paint pot; and then, to cover 
up his carelessness, he can lay the blame on the paint. 
The careful painter will, when using heavy pigments, 
carry a paddle, and not neglect to use it. To pre- 
vent white lead and other heavy pigments from set- 
tling in the pot the paint must be well mixed, and 
kept mixed by stirring with a paddle as often and as 
much as may be necessary to keep the oil or other 
vehicle, and the pigment well incorporated. No one 
hut a novice, or a careless painter will permit a sedi- 
ment to accumulate in the bottom of his pot; no 
matter whether the pigment is coarse or fine; or 
whether the vehicle used is linseed oil, turpentine or 
benzine. The painter who goes to work without a stir- 
ring paddle in his pot will be liable to do uneven 
work, and find more or less sediment in the bottom 
of his paint pot at quitting time, because there is no 
white lead made which does not contain more or less 
particles sufficiently heavy to commence settling the 
minute the paddle stops, and go to the bottom of a 
pot of flating, as ordinarily mixed, inside of thirty 
minutes, and other particles of smaller size will fol- 
low later. If the pigment is mixed with oil the pro- 
cess of settling is slower, but no less sure to take 
place, and continue, if undisturbed, until eleai oil 



Practical House Painter. 43 

stands on top of the pigment. Don't try to use your 
brush for a paddle; it isn't a good tool to stir paint 
from the bottom. Paint made of heavy pigment 
must be frequently stirred with a paddle to keep it 
of uniform consistency, but this operation is too 
often neglected. For instance, a man starts out with 
a full pot in the morning and neglects to stir his 
paint as he works, hence the heavier particles com- 
mence to settle and soon get below the dip of the 
brush, and by continual settling keep out of the 
reach of it until they reach the bottom. When the 
paint is nearly all out, and the sediment at the bot- 
tom don't work well, he refills his pot, leaving in the 
coarse pigment. At night the boss finds an inch or 
less of coarse paint in the bottom of the pot, and 
without further inquiry complains that the lead is 
sandy. 

Another instance : The paint for a job stands 
mixed over night; the painters fill their pots from 
time to time during the day, but never stir the paint 
from the bottom, hence the last pot or two filled will 
have all the coarse pigment of the batch. There are 
eases, I admit (too many of them), where not only 
white lead, but dry colors and colors in oil, are too 
coarse to work well, but the best white lead and heavy 
colored pigments in oil or turpentine are liable to 
be called sandy unless frequently stirred by the 
painter. 



44 Practical House Painter. 



TO MAKE CHERRY STAIN. 



Take annotto^ 4 ounces, and clear rain water, 3 
quarts. Boil in a brass or copper kettle, new tin or 
galvanized iron will do, until the color of the annotto 
is imparted to the water; then add ^ ounce potash, 
and keep the mixture hot for 30 minutes; then, as 
soon as cool enough to handle, it is ready for use. 
Now, have the work free from dust, and spread on 
your stain with a brush or sponge and rub it well 
into the wood. 

When the work is dry, rub lightly with fine sand- 
paper, because the water stain will raise the grain 
unless the wood has been filled. 

You can suit the taste of the owner as to depth 
of color by repeating the operation, or by making the 
stain weaker or stronger, as the case may require. 

VARNISH STAINS. 

These often come very handy to the painter, not 
only in toning up new wood, but in renewing the 
freshness of old work. 

MAHOGANY VARNISH STAIN. 

Spirits 1 gallon, gum sandarac 1 pound, shellac 
■J pound, Venice turpentine 2 ounces, dragon's blood 
4 ounces. 

WALNUT VARNISH STAIN. 

Shellac IJ pounds, spirit 1 gallon, Bismarck brown 
1 ounce, nigrosine J ounce. You can, by varying the 



Practical House Painter. 46 

proportions of the two colors, make the shade as you 
like it. 

(Spirit in this connection means either wood or 
grain alcohol.) 

MAHOGANY VARNISH STAIN. 

Spirits 1 gallon, shellac 1^ pounds, Bismarck 
brown R ^ ounce, nigrosine 30 grains. More nigrosine 
will make the stain darker. If this is too thick to 
work well, thin with spirits. 

TO MAKE NEW OAK LOOK OLD. 

Sponge it with a strong hot solution of common 
soda in water. This will raise the grain, hence it 
will require cutting down with sandpaper. 

DARK STAIN FOR OAK. 

Make a solution of bi-chromate of potash, 1-| ounces 
to 2 quarts soft water. Lay on the solution with a 
good clean sponge and keep the wood wet with the 
solution until it is dark enough to please you. Then 
wash off the potash with clean soft water. 

ANOTHER. 

Apply with a brush, strong aqua ammonia until 
you get the desired shade. 

RED SAUNDERS STAIN. 

Fill a bottle 1-3 full of red saunders, then fill the 
bottle with either wood or grain alcohol. The more 
red saunders you put in, the stronger will be the 



46 Practical House Painter. 

stain ; you can dilute it for the lighter shades. The 
longer it stands, the more color will be extracted. 
Always strain through muslin before using. 

Red saunders makes a good cherry stain. When 
used on the bare wood it requires no oinder, but when 
used over filled or oiled wood, put in one-fourth as 
much shellac varnish as you have stain, to act as a 
binder for it. If you want it to act as a filler as well 
ns a stain, for pine or other close grained wood, add 
1| pounds corn starch, to each gallon of the mixture 
of stain and shellac. Try a little and if it rubs up 
when dry, add more shellac. 

You can mix red saunders stain with asphaltum 
varnish, to make black walnut and mahogany stains, 
using more or less of either to give the desired shade 
by using turpentine to make them mix. The as- 
phaltum acts as a binder in place of the shellac. 

The practical painter can get the shades he wants 
by experimenting on this line. 

TO CHANGE THE COLOR OF WALNUT TO DARK 
MAHOGANY. 

First give it a coat of very thin asphaltum varnish, 
then, when dry, give it a coat of red saunders and 
shellac. 

You can mix the red saunders and asphaltum stain 
with any turpentine varnish, or with spirit varnish, if 
you use turpentine to make them mix. 

Burnt umber and burnt sienna in oil or varnish 



Practical House Painter, 47 

make a walnut stain. Use but little of the pigments 
in proportion to the oil. Too much pigment gives 
the work a muddy color. 

NATURAL WOOD FINISHING. 

Clean up all soiled places on the wood. To be 
sure of a good job on open grained wood use a Bliss 
Eock Wood Filler. If you use a ready made filler, 
thin as per directions on the can. Whatever filler 
you use, put it on with a good brush. As soon as 
the filler begins to set, or show flat, commence to rub 
it into the grain with a pad made by gluing a piece 
of harness leather onto a block; always when prac- 
ticable rub across the grain of the wood. For round 
work have a long piece ot leather to draw back and 
forth around the work. Remember the main thing 
at this stage is to get as much of the filler as possible 
rubbed into the wood. 

Another important point is to take off the surplus 
filler before it becomes too hard to wipe off, and 
another point is to wipe off the surplus filler and 
leave the pores of the wood level full. Hence, it 
is important that the filler does not dry too fast, 
that the painter puts on no more filler at a time 
than he can handle before it dries, and that in wip- 
ing off the surplus filler he works his rags across the 
grain. Some very open grained wood requires a 
second application of filler to make a good job, or at 
least to be looked over and touched up. The filler 



48 Practical House Painter. 

should have at least two days to dry. When dry go 
over it lightly with fine sandpaper to take off all 
particles of filler left on the surface. 

Walnut, mahogany, chestnut, oak, ash and butter- 
nut may be classed as open grained woods, which 
need to be well filled with paste filler colored to 
match the color of the wood. When the filler is dry 
put on a coat or two of white shellac and rub down 
smooth with No. 1 sandpaper, and follow with two 
or more coats of hard oil or varnish, as you like ; give 
each coat plenty of time to dry and rub each coat 
with curled hair or hair cloth, except the last coat. 
If you want an egg shell or half gloss, rub the last 
coat with pulverized pumice stone and raw linseed 
oil. If you want a dead finish rub down with pul- 
verized pumice stone and water instead of oil. If 
you w^ant a polish, first rub with the pumice stone 
and water; then with rotten stone and water, and 
polish with rotten stone and oil, or furniture pol- 
ish and rotten stone. If you want a gloss finish, 
flow on the last coat and omit rubbing. Treat the 
close grained woods as above stated, with the excep- 
tion of the filler. The shellac also may be omitted, 
but it will take at least one more coat of hard-oil or 
varnish for the job. 

Cherry, sycamore, maple, birch, gumwood, red- 
wood, cypress, pine, whitewood, poplar and hemlock 
are all close grained woods, and need no paste filler. 



Practical House Painter. 49 

Pine especially should have a coat of shellac to keep 
back the pitch. 

For an extra fine job of gloss finish, rub next to 
the last coat with pumice stone and water, flow on a 
coat of good varnish, and leave it in the gloss. In 
this case great care is required in cleaning the work 
to keep it from showing specks. 

It stands the beginner in hand to be careful and 
not use his shellac too hea^^ to work well; shellac 
has good body and an apparently very thin coat will 
be a good heavy one. 

To do a fine job the room and work must be clean, 
the clothing free from dust, and the work, brushes 
and varnish free from specks. If specks show on 
your gloss coat call a halt, and find where they come 
from. 

Soft cotton rags are the best material for wiping 
off surplus filler. 

A felt pad of convenient size to handle is the best 
for rubbing work. Get one at the furniture shop. 
For a cheap job omit the water rubbing, and rub 
with pumice stone and raw oil. 

TO MAKE BLEACHED OR WHITE SHELLAC VARNISH. 

Take powdered white shellac IJ pounds, best grain 
alcohol 1 gallon. Add the gum to the alcohol, set 
it in a warm place and shake your jug or bottle 
occasionally. Don't put it in tin or iron; either of 
them will discolor it. You can hasten the process by 



60 Practical House Painter. 

setting your jug in a sand or water bath, and gently 
heating it ; or set it by the stove, or in the sunshine. 
To make the common orange shellac of commerce, 
dissolve IJ pounds orange shellac in 1 gallon methy- 
lated spirit or grain alcohol. This will dry in ten 
or fifteen minutes, and makes a hard lustrous varnish 
when dry, and stands the weather better than most 
gum varnishes. It makes a turbid liquid of orange 
brown hue and dries rather a pale brown. For use 
on dark wood this is equal to the white shellac, if not 
superior. 

TO COLOR PUTTY. 

There is no use in trying to color common putty to 
match the color of natural wood. The whiting in it 
will not take clear tints. Use lead putty, which you 
can tint with raw sienna for pine, yellow ochre for 
oak, burnt umber and burnt sienna for walnut, and 
burnt sienna for mahogany. Better have the putty 
too light than too dark. 

SPOTS ON PAINT. 

Poor lumber and thin painting are often the cause 
of spots on paint, especially on two-coat work. On 
cross-grained and other extra-porous places more of 
the oil sinks into the wood than on the general sur- 
face, and the result is flat places in the paint, which 
fade sooner than the glossy paint ; hence, the work 
looks spotted. 

To provide against this kind of spotting use more 



Practical House Painter. 51 

care in priming and see that all extra-porous places 
are well filled with the prime coat, or touch them up 
before the second coat goes on. A little extra work 
with the brush when putting on the prime will save 
trouble. 

Another cause may be traced to the practice of 
putting on a coarse dark priming coat, which will 
show through in places where the paint is thinnest. 

Mildew, or fungus growth, is another cause. This 
sometimes comes from the use of too much japan, 
poor or fat oil, or when the paint dries tacky or soft. 

Adulteration of linseed oil with mineral and other 
non-drying oils, has a tendency to make paint dry 
soft. Linseed oil, kept for a few days in an old sour 
tank or in an old rancid can in the paint-shop, is 
liable to cause fermentation to take place, which may 
result in mildew in damp weather in shaded places. 

When an oil can smells sour, or there is a deposit 
of foots at the bottom, it is unfit to keep oil in. 

Another cause of spotting may be found in in- 
sufficient and improper brushing or spreading the 
paint; especially the priming, which requires as 
much care in putting on as any other coat on the 
job. 

For instance, here is a job which shows "laps." 
Now, if this prime is right when it is put on single, it 
is wrong when it is put on double, because, where the 
laps are, the work has at least one more coat than 



62 Practiciil House Painter. 

the balance of the job, hence the paint is liable to 
fade spotted. 

PORCELAIN FINISH. — CHINA GLOSS. GLOSS FINISH. 

All different names for about the same thing. To 
make a fine job: If the work is new, see that it is 
smooth, free from dust and stains. Then give it a 
coat of priming, put on thin, so as not to show 
brush marks, and rub down with No. sandpaper. 
Next, get a good body with keg lead, mixed in tur- 
pentine and a very little linseed oil; put on thin 
coats, so as not to show brush marks; use a fitch 
brush, or at least a fine bristle chiseled brush. When 
dry, rub down with sandpaper and flow on a coat of 
thin white shellac. This is to keep back the oil in 
the lead coats, and prevent chemical action between 
the lead and zinc coats. Next, put on two or more 
coats of French zinc ground in damar varnish; 
enough at least, to get a clear white. Thin with turps 
and a little damar varnish, and put on thin enough to 
show no laps or brush marks. 

Then put on a coat or two of French zinc ground 
in damar varnish, thinned with 1 part damar varnish 
and 2 parts turpentine. Next put on a coat of damar 
varnish mixed with a little zinc ground in 
damar, just enough to make the varnish white. Flow 
on a coat, and be careful that it does not run on 
your work. To avoid runs always commence at the 
top of a panel with a full brush and work down so 



Practical House Painter. 53 

as not to have a surplus. in the lower corners of the 
panels; this applies to all parts of the work. It is 
quite a knack to put on a full coat of this varnish 
and zinc, and not have it run. 

In all cases put on enough zinc coats to make a 
clear white before you put on the varnish. The small 
quantity of zinc is put in the varnish to take off 
the yellow tinge, and to keep it from turning yellow. 
Use lead putty. See recipes to make it on another 
page. 

ANOTHER WAY. 

Very hard and white, for parlors. — To prepare 
the wood for the finish, if it be pine, give one or 
two coats of the "Varnish — Transparent for wood," 
which prevents the pitch from oozing out, causing the 
finish to turn yellow; next, give the room, at least, 
four coats of pure zinc, which may be ground in 
only sufficient oil to enable it to grind properly; 
then mix to a proper consistency with turpentine or 
naphtha. Give each coat time to dry. When it is 
dry and hard, sandpaper it to a perfectly smooth 
surface, when it is ready to receive the finish, which 
consists of two coats of French zinc ground in, and 
thinned with damar varnish, until it works properly 
under the brush. 

LEAD POISOlSriNG HOVP" TO AVOID IT. 

White lead may enter the human system in three 
ways, to-wit : Through the stomach, the lungs and 



54 Practical House Painter. 

the skin. In other words, it may be eaten, inhaled 
or absorbed, hence the stomach, lungs and skin 
should each be carefully guarded against it. To 
guard the stomach, through which you are in the 
most danger of taking in the poison, make it a rule 
to keep the mouth closed as much as possible when 
using white lead, and especially when sandpapering. 
Make it a rule to never eat or drink without first 
carefully cleansing your lips, and carefully removing 
the paint from your hands before eating. Tobacco 
chewers, who carry tobacco in their pockets, are in 
especial danger of lead poison, if working in paint, 
because the tobacco becomes more or less poisoned 
with lead from the fingers, if the painter is not care- 
ful to clean his hands before taking a chew. There 
is no great danger from inhaling white lead, except 
when sandpapering, or when dusting after sand- 
papering. 

It is a pretty good thing to carefully guard the 
nose with a damp sponge while sandpapering, and 
to carefully free the nostrils from lead. There is 
no danger of poisoning by absorption through the 
skin, unless the painter is careless. When I see 
some men at work, I wonder how they can possibly 
escape lead poisoning. Their clothing glazed with oil 
paint, their hands daubed to the wrist by grasping 
the brush by the head, instead of by the handle ; or 
by general carelessness in mixing and handling 
paints. 



Practical House Painter. 55 

SYMPTOMS OF LEAD POISON. 

Tired feeling, wakefulness at night, neuralgic 
pains, "'shaky" hands, constipated bowels, bad taste 
in the mouth, and pain in the bowels, a blue edge on 
the gums, and a coated tongue. If you get the 
colic, see a doctor; for the other symptoms, get away 
from paint for a while if possible, and take the 
following : Iodide of potash, J oz. ; syrup sarsaparilla, 
8 oz. Dose : — Teaspoonful three or four times a day 
in half a cup of milk. Eat graham mush and drink 
milk. 

TO FINISH FURNITURE AND OTHER WORK IN SIX- 
TEENTH CENTURY OAK. 

First fill the wood with any good filler. Fill it 
well, then take Vandyke brown 3 parts, and burnt 
sienna 1 part, and mix to a stiff paste with boiled 
oil and japan, and thin with turpentine, until you 
can brush it on the wood, and not have it look dauby 
or muddy. Give the work a light coat, and brush 
it out well and carefully. Too much pigment will 
make your work too dark. Wherever you want the 
light or worn spots to appear, wipe off the stain 
with a cloth, and with a badger blender carefully 
blend the stain into the edges of the worn or light 
spots. Don't stain too much at once, for fear your 
stain may set so 5'ou cannot wipe out and blend. 
When the stain is dry, sandpaper lightly with No. 
paper. Finish with two coats rubbing varnish, or 



66 Practical House Painter. 

with hard oil finish. Polish with rotten stone and 
raw oil. 

A SUPERIOR GLUE ( WATERPROOF) . 

A very superior article may be made by dissolv- 
ing 3 parts of india rubber in 30 parts of naphtha; 
heat and agitation will be required to effect the 
solution; when the rubber is completely dissolved, 
add 64 parts of finely powdered shellac, which must 
also be heated in the above mixture until all is dis- 
solved. This mixture may be produced in sheets like 
glue by pouring it while hot upon plates of metal, 
where it will harden. When required for use, it 
may simply be heated in a pot till soft. Two pieces 
of wood or leather, joined together with this glue, 
can scarcely be sundered without a fracture of the 
parts. 

A VALUABLE CEMENT. 

We find the following recipe good : The compound 
of glycerin, oxide of lead, and red lead, for mending 
cast-iron that has been fractured with the happiest 
results. It takes some little time to dry, but turns 
almost as hard as stone, and is fire and waterproof. 
For mending cracks in stone or cast-iron ware, 
where iron filling cannot be had, we think it is in- 
valuable. Take litharge and red lead, equal parts, 
mix thoroughly and make into a paste with concen- 
trated glycerin to the consistency of soft putty, fill 
the crack and smear a thin layer on both sides of the 



Practical House Painter. 67 

casting so as to completely cover the fracture. This 
layer can be rubbed off, if necessary, when nearly dry, 
by an old knife or chisel. 

LINSEED OIL AND IRON RUST. 

The oleaginous principle of linseed oil is said to 
be in the nature of neutral salts called linolein, con- 
sisting of linoleic acid combined with a glycerine 
base. Linolein is said by some writers to constitute 
three-fourths of the volume of linseed, oil, and that 
the drying properties of the oil reside in the acid 
principle of the linolein ; that is, linoleic acid has the 
property of attracting and combining with oxygen 
to form the substance known as dry linseed oil. This 
acid is said to be a compound of several different 
acid principles, combined in definite proportions. 
Writers seem to disagree as to what the acids are, 
and in what respect they differ from the acid prop- 
erties of the non-drying fixed oils, but that is a 
question which need not be discussed here. The 
glycerine base of linolein seems to be common to all 
fixed oils, and is set down as an oxide consisting of 
one equivalent of water and five of oxygen; hence 
the affinity between the linoleic acid and its glycerine 
base. 

Linoleic acid, like other acids, has an affinity for 
alkalies and the ordinary metallic oxides. It unites 
with them, forming neutral compounds. This affin- 
ity is said to be electrical; the alkalies and oxides 



58 Practical House Painter. 

electro-positive, and the acid electro-negative. The 
greater the contrast in this respect, the stronger the 
affinity; hence, some acids separate others from 
their bases and form new salts by precipitation. As 
an instance: 

Drop sulphuric acid into a solution of acetate of 
lead. It will displace the acetic acid, form sulphate 
of lead and precipitate, leaving the liberated acetic 
acid in solution. In linolein, this acid is so consti- 
tuted that the affinity, or attraction between it and 
its glycerine base, is too feeble to resist and keep 
back the oxygen of the air; hence, when linseed oil 
is exposed to the air in a thin layer, oxygen unites 
with its linoleic acid, and this process continues un- 
til the oil becomes dry to the touch. Beyond this 
point the process is slower, because the oil is now 
less penetrable; but the process goes on until the 
layer of oil becomes hard and brittle, no matter 
with what pigment it may be mixed, although the 
pigment may for a time retard the action of the 
destroying elements. 

Linseed oil dries too slowly for general use by the 
painter, hence various ways have been devised to 
hasten the drying process. If the foregoing theory 
is correct, the process which will cause the oil to 
dry to a good wearing body in the time desired, and 
leave it in the best condition to resist the action of 
the elements and the absorption of oxygen, is the 
best. 1 regard the lead oxides as the best dryers 



Practical House Paiuter. 59 

for this purpose — at least according to my experi- 
ence. When we add an oxide to linseed oil as a 
dryer in the small quantity which experience has 
taught us is best to use, it is evident that it is not 
sufficient in itself to oxidize the whole of the oil to 
an appreciable extent. Writers differ as to the pecu- 
liar action of the oxides upon the oil, but I think it 
safe to say that the dryer sets up some chemical re- 
action which increases the affinity between the lino- 
lein and the oxygen of the atmosphere; at any rate, 
there is no dispute upon the point that linseed oil 
in drying absorbs a large per cent of oxygen. 

A knowledge of this unanimously conceded point 
led me to believe that a coat of pure linseed oil 
might make the best possible priming coat for iron 
work which had commenced to rust. Why? Be- 
cause iron rust is an oxide of iron, having an excess 
of oxygen. Spread on rusty iron, it penetrates the 
rust, absorbs its excess of oxygen and dries with the 
remaining neutral oxide held fast in its body. This 
is my theory; whether correct or not, numerous 
tests have proved to me that a coat of linseed oil 
will stop the rusting of iron if applied under proper 
conditions. When rust is thiclc or scaling there is 
no safety short of taking it off. Iron rust is more 
or less hydrated ; to free it from moisture, give it the 
flame of the gasoline paint burner. 



60 Practical House Painter. 

WHITE ENAMEL (SELECTED). 

First, the wood is primed with a composition con- 
sisting of three parts of turpentine and one part of 
oil, japan gold size being used as a dryer. On this 
drying thoroughly the work is rubbed down until 
perfectly smooth. Xext are applied two or three 
coats of pure white lead mixed entirely flat; each 
coat is rubbed down, time being allowed for it to 
dry. Equal parts of lead and zinc are used for the 
next coat, and three-fourths zinc and one-fourth 
lead for the one succeeding. After this has become 
thoroughly hard it is rubbed down very smooth. A 
thin coat of color made of zinc and turpentine is now 
rubbed on; for the next coat the same flat color is 
used, with the addition of about one-half the quan- 
tity of good light coach varnish. For the last coat 
enough zinc is used in the varnish to make it white 
if the last coat of zinc is not white and solid before 
varnishing. If the work is to be gilded or striped 
the zinc must be left out of the last coat of varnish. 

VARNISH TO IMITATE GROUND GLASS. 

An expert has sent the following to the British 
Journal of Photography : To make a varnish to imi- 
tate ground glass, dissolve 90 gains sandrac and 20 
grains of mastic in 2 ounces of washed methylated 
ether, and add, in small quantities, a sufflciency of 
benzine to make it dry with a suitable grain — too 
little making the varnish too transparent, and ex- 



Practical House Painter. 61 

cess making it crapy. The quantity of benzine re- 
quired depends upon its quality — from half an ounce 
to an ounce and a half, or even more; but the best 
results are got with a medium quality. It is im- 
portant to use washed ether, free from spirit. 

VARNISH FOR RUSTIC WORK. 

One quart of boiled linseed oil and two ounces of 
asphaltum, to be boiled on a slow fire until the 
asphaltum is dissolved, being kept stirred to prevent 
its boiling over. This gives a fine dark color, is not 
sticky, and looks well for a year; or, first wash the 
article with soap and water, and when dry, on a 
sunny day do it over with common boiled linseed 
oil; leave that to dry a day or two, then varnish 
it over once or twice with hard varnish. If well 
done this will last for years and prevent annoyance 
from insects. 

TO CLEAN VERY DIRTY BRASS. 

Rub some bi-chromate of potassa fine, pour over 
it about twice its bulk of sulphuric acid, and mix 
this with an equal quantity of water. The dirtiest 
brass is cleaned in a trice. Wash right off in plenty 
of water, wipe it and rub perfectly dry, and polish 
with powdered rotten stone. 

TO COUNTERFEIT TORTOISE SHELL VERY FINELY. 

In order to do this well, your foundation or 
ground-work must be perfectly smooth and white, 



62 Practical House Painter. 

or nearly so, you then gild it with silver leaf with slow 
size, so as to have it perfectly smooth with no ragged 
edges, cleaning the loose leaf off. Then grind co- 
logne earth very fine, and mix it with gum water, 
common size ; and with this, you having added more 
gum water than it was ground with, spot or cloud 
the ground work, having a fine shell to imitate ; and 
when this is done, you will perceive several reds, 
lighter and darker, appear on the edges of the black, 
and many times lie in streaks on the transparent 
part of the shell. To imitate this finely, grind 
dragon's blood with gum water, and with a fine 
pencil draw those warm reds, flushing it in about the 
dark places more thickly, but fainter and fainter and 
thinner, with less color towards the lighter parts, 
so sweetening it that it may in a manner lose the 
red, being sunk in the silver or more transparent 
parts. When it is dry, give it a coat of varnish, 
let it stand for a few days, then rub it down with 
pumice stone and water. Then grind gamboge very 
fine, and mix with varnish, giving of this as many 
coats as will cause the silver to have a golden color, 
then finish with a clean coat of varnish. 

PRICE LIST. 

The prices of labor, and cost of material vary so 
much in different localities that it seems impossible 
to make a reliable price list for general work. The 
position, condition, and shape of different jobs all 



Practical House Painter. 63 

go towards making a general price list, an unreliable 
guide ; also the quality of work demanded may make 
50 per cent difference in price. I have half a dozen 
printed price lists before me, and they generally 
agree to about the following prices for painting and 
glazing, to-wit: 

Per Yard. 
1 coat on new work 8 to 10 cents 

1 coat on old work 10 to 18 cents 

2 coats on new work 18 to 20 cents 

2 coats on old work 20 to 25 cents 

3 coats on new work 25 to 28 cents 

Brick walls, 2 coats 20 to 30 cents 

Penciling 10 to 15 cents 

PRIMING AND GLAZING SASH. 

Per Light. 

10x14 and under 5 to 6 cents 

12x16 7 to 9 cents 

14x24 10 to 12 cents 

18x24 15 to 18 cents 

24x30 20 to 25 cents 

36x40 35 to 50 cents 

For old work where the old putty is in the sash, 
multiply the above figures by 3 or 4. When called 
out to the house to set a light or two charge for 
time and material. Most work of this kind is done 
at least 30 per cent below the above prices. 

I quote below a price list for sign painters, from 
a very complete report on painters' prices and meas- 
urements, generally, by one of the ablest of local 
associations of master painters and decorators: 



64 Practical House Painter. 

JAPANNED TIN SIGNS. 

Gold. Plain. 

3x14 inches $1.25 $ .75 

6x 8 inches 1.50 .75 

8x10 inches 1.75 1.00 

10x14 inches 2.50 1.50 

11x17 inches 3.00 2.00 

11x17 inches, 3 lines 3.50 2.55 

14x20 inches 4.00 2.50 

14x20 inches, 3 lines 4.50 3.00 

18x24 inches G.OO 3.50 

18x24 inches, 3 lines 7.00 4.00 

Frames additional. 

GLASS SIGNS ON WINDOWS AND DOORS. 

In Silver or Gold Per Foot. 

Letters up to inches in height $ .75 

Letters 6 to 10 inches in height 1.00 

Letters 10 to 14 inches in height 1.50 

Shaded, one color, 25 per cent extra. 

DRUM SIGNS. 

Gold. Plain. 

10x14 inches $ 3.50 $ 2.50 

11x17 inches 4.00 3.00 

14x20 inches 5.00 3.50 

18x24 inches 7.00 5.00 

.20x24 inches 8.50 0.50 

24x30 inches 10.00 7.00 

30x3G inches 12.00 8.50 

36x48 inches 15.00 10.00 

The above include moulding and urns and 
putting up. 

Drilling holes in iror extra. 



Practical House Painter. 65 

MUSLIN SIGNS. 

Per Foot. 
Up to 1 foot high, black 8 cents 

1 to 2 feet, black 10 cents 

2 to 3 feet, black 12 cents 

Colored one-half extra. 

Muslin furnished. 
Frames extra, 

OIL CLOTH SIGNS. 

Per Foot. 
Up to 1 foot 20 cents 

1 to 2 feet 25 cents 

2 to 3 feet. 30 cents 

Oil cloth furnished. 

Frames extra. 

BOARD SIGNS. 
Including three coats of paint and lettering. 

Gold. Plain. 

6 inches X 4 feet $4.00 $2.50 

8 inches X 6 feet 5.00 3.50 

10 inches x 8 feet 6.00 4.00 

1 foot X 12 feet 7.50 5.00 

1 foot X 15 feet. 8.50 5.00 

14 inches x 16 feet 8.50 5.00 

14 inches x 18 feet 9.00 6.00 

14 inches x 20 feet 9.50 - 6.00 

16 inches X 16 feet 9.50 6.00 

16 inches x 18 feet. 10.00 6.00 

18 inches x 18 feet 10.00 6.00 

18 inches x 20 feet 12.00 7.00 

18 inches x 24 feet 15.00 7.00 

18 inches x 30 feet 18.00 8.00 

Board extra. 

Irons and putting up extra. 

Shading, 25 per cent additional, one color. 



66 Practical House Painter. 

WALL SIGNS. 

Two coats of paint and lettering. Extra coat, 1 cent 
per square foot additional. 

2x16 feet $ 6.00 

2x20 feet 7.00 

2x24 feet 8.00 

2x30 feet 10.50 

3x16 feet 8.00 

3x20 feet 10.00 

3x24 feet 12.00 

3x30 feet 14.00 

4x10 feet 9.00 

4x20 feet 12.00 

4x24 feet 13.00 

4x30 feet 15.00 

6x16 feet 12.00 

6x20 feet 14.00 

6x24 feet 16.00 

6x30 feet , 18.00 

8x16 feet 14.00 

8x20 feet 16.00 

8x24 feet 18.00 

8x30 feet 20.00 

10x12 feet 10.00 

10x16 feet 13.00 

10x20 feet 16.00 

10x24 feet 19.00 

10x30 feet 22.00 

12x10 feet. 14.00 

12x20 feet 18.00 

12x24 feet 20.00 

12x30 feet 25.00 

14x20 feet 20.00 

14x24 feet 24.00 

14x30 feet , , 28.00 



Practical House Painter. 67 

16x24 feet $26.00 

16x30 feet 39.00 

20x24 feet. 30.00 

20x30 feet 35.00 

20x40 feet . 40.00 

21x30 feet. 37.00 

24x36 feet 42.00 

24x40 feet 48.00 

30x40 feet 60.00 

30x50 feet 70.00 

30x60 feet 80.00 

SHOW CARDS. 

1 sheet, 22x25 $ 1.50 

1 sheet, 14x22 75 

1 sheet, 11x14 50 

The above prices are based upon white lead at 7 cents per 
pound and wages at 33^ cents an hour. 

MIDSUMMER PAINTING. 

All things considered, which is the best time of the 
year to do outside painting? Spring and fall, did 
you say ? Well, yes. I know nearly all painters think 
so, and the people outside the trade are almost, if 
not quite, unanimous in holding the same opinion. 
But why? Do the winds of March, the frequent 
showers of April and May add very much to the 
pleasure and profit of doing outside work in spring? 
Do the soaking rains, which come along about the 
time of the vernal equinox and drive you off your 
job for a week or two and watersoak your unprimed 
work, add much pleasure to your recollections of 



68 Practical House Painter. 

spring painting? Do you remember anything about 
the clouds of midges and thousands of little moths 
which filled the air, ready and willing to decorate 
your paint with their little bodies on every still, 
warm mid-day in April and May? Of course, we 
are speaking now of climatic conditions from 
our own standpoint, the great Northwest, which may 
also be true in the Middle and New England states. 
The mornings and evenings of spring and fall are 
apt to be cool — often frosty ; then the oil stiffens and 
the paint rubs out hard and goes on slow, and we 
lose time and work harder. Practically, I fav.or mid- 
summer for outside work, because the temperature is 
more uniformly warm and the paint spreads easily 
and evenly at any time of day, and as a rule the 
rains are less frequent and give a longer warning of 
their approach. The little black flies are not so 
plentiful in the hot days of summer as they are in 
spring and early fall. They are either dead or seek 
the shade of trees and grass. The dew is all gone 
in summer before seven o'clock a. m., and does not 
commence to fall until after quitting time. A car- 
pet of grass and other vegetation covers a large por- 
tion of the ground in summer, holding down the 
dust. The winds are not usually so high and gusty 
in summer as they are in the spring and fall. In 
the warm days of summer your work is more apt to 
dry quickly, cleanly and evenly; and when you 
'T^nock off" from work at six p. m., and the sun is 



Practical House Painter. 68 

yet two hours above the horizon, you know that your 
last ground stretch will soon be out of the way of 
dust and rain. In the hot weather of summer the 
pores of the wood are all open, and the oil, which is 
then soft and thin, goes farther into the wood than 
in spring and fall, when the weather is cool. There 
are, it is true, some fine days in the fall for outside 
work, but the rainy season of the autumnal equinox 
and the frosty nights of the later months often re- 
tard your work and mar the finish of your job. One 
objection urged against summer painting is the 
flies, but really are the flies which injure paint any 
more numerous in midsummer than they are in 
spring and fall? It is true the festive house-fly is 
in his glory in the summer, but, as a rule, he is too 
smart to get stuck in outside paint. To get inside 
is his ambition, and the molasses-cup and sugar- 
bowl are his objective points. If the house-fly is an 
objection in the summer, it certainly is a greater one 
in the fall, for in September and early in October 
they are thicker, saucier and more familiar than at 
any other time of year; then they want not only to 
get at the sugar, but to get in and warm. 

A correspondent asks: "Does the reader know 
from practical experiment that one season is better 
than another for applying outside paint?'' I sup- 
pose the writer means the effect upon the wearing 
qualities of the paint and the permanency of the 
color. I have been experimenting for a practical 



70 Practical House Painter. 

solution of this question for my own satisfaction 
and guidance, and have come to the conclusion that 
paint put on the outside in the hot weather of sum- 
mer will wear as well and hold its color as long as 
paint put on in the cooler days of spring and fall. 
I know the idea that paint dries too fast in hot 
weather is almost universal, but I think it grows 
largely from the fact that a quick-drying paint is 
not as good for outside as a slow dryer ; but you must 
remember that there is a great difference between a 
quick-drying paint and drying a slow paint as 
quickly as the ingredients will admit of. Linseed 
oil dries or hardens by absorbing oxygen from the 
air, and that process goes on more rapidly in hot 
weather than in cool weather, because the air in hot 
weather is in a condition more freely to part with 
its oxygen, or because the oil is in a better condition 
to receive it, or both. In other words, a warm atmos- 
phere hastens the process of absorption and a 
cool air retards it, but in either case the result is 
the same: the air gives up enough of its oxygen to 
solidify the oil. Now, the question arises, can any 
difference be discovered (chemical or otherwise) in 
the composition of the paint, whether dried in warm 
or cool air? From a business-point of view, I have 
long advocated summer as a good time to paint out- 
side, and have usually succeeded in converting cus- 
tomers to my views upon the subject, and as a con- 
sequence have not often had a dull time in mid- 



Practical House Painter. 71 

summer. We painters in the country know how un- 
pleasant and unprofitable it is to have all the work 
of the year rushed upon us in the spring and fall, 
and I think if painters generally could convince 
themselves by practical experiment that, all things 
considered, summer time is the best season of the 
year to do outside work, and advocate the same to 
their customers, backed by argument and practical 
illustration, there would soon be less need of com- 
plaint about a dull season in midsummer. 

TO REMOVE PAINT. 

1. An expeditious way is by chemical process, us- 
ing a solution of soda and quicklime in equal pro- 
portions. The soda is dissolved in water, the lime 
is then added, and the solution is applied with a 
brush to the old paint. A few moments are suffi- 
cient to remove the coats of paint, which may be 
washed off with hot water. The oldest paint may be 
removed by a paste of the soda and quicklime. The 
wood should be afterwards washed vfith vinegar or 
an acid solution before repainting, to remove all 
traces of alkali. 

2. Wet the place with naphtha, repeating as often 
as required; but frequently one application will dis- 
solve the paint. As soon as it is softened, rub the 
surface clean. Chloroform mixed with a small 
quantity of spirit ammonia, composed of strong am- 
moniac, has been employed very successfully to re- 



72 Praetical House Painter. 

move the stains of dry paint from wood, silk, and 
other substances. 

3. To remove paint from floors. — Take one pound 
of American pearlash, three pounds of quickstone 
lime. Slake the lime in water, then add the pearl- 
ash, and make the whole amount about the consist- 
enc}^ of paint. Lay the mixture over the whole body 
of the work which is required to be cleaned, with an 
old brush ; let it remain for twelve or fourteen hours, 
when the paint can be easily scraped off. 

TO SOFTEN PUTTY AND REMOVE OLD PAINT, 

1. Take three pounds of quickstone lime; slake the 
lime in water, then add one pound of American 
pearlash; apply this to both sides of the glass and 
let it remain for twelve hours, when the putty will 
be softened, and the glass may be taken out without 
being broken. To destroy paint, apply it to the whole 
body which is required to be cleaned; use an old 
brush, as it will spoil a new one ; let it remain about 
twelve or fourteen hours, and then the paint may be 
easily scraped off. 

2. To remove paint from old doors, etc., and to 
soften putty in window frames, so that the glass 
may be taken out without breakage or cutting, take 
one pound of pearlash and three pounds of quick- 
lime, slake the lime in water and then add the 
pearlash, and make the whole about the consistency 
of paint. Apply to both sides of the glass and let it 



Practical House Painter. 73 

remain for twelve hours, when the putty will be so 
softened that the glass may be taken out of the 
frame without being cut, and with the greatest facil- 
ity. To destroy paint, lay the above over the whole 
body of the work which is required to be cleaned, 
using an old brush, as it "will spoil a new one. Let 
it remain for twelve or fourteen hours, when the 
paint can be easily scraped off. 

3. Paint stains on glass. — American potash, 3 
parts; unslaked lime, 1. Lay this on with a stick, 
letting it remain for some time, and it will remove 
either tar or paint. 

TREATMENT OF DAMP WALLS. 

There are two classes of damp walls, first where 
the water comes in from the outside from defective 
roofs, bad gutters, defective pipes, and where it comes 
through the walls from the ground, as in basements. 
In the other class we may include walls which are 
dampened by condensation of moisture, in places 
shut off from the general artificial temperature of 
the room, behind stationary furniture. Such walls 
may dry out during hot weather, or they may be kept 
damp by a growth of mold or fungus. 

When water comes in from the outside, it is im- 
possible to keep paint or paper on the wall in good 
shape. Look around for the places where the water 
comes in, point it out to the owner, and if he fails 
to stop the leak have it understood that the work is 



74 Practical House Painter. 

done at his risk; or, what is better, refuse to do the 
work; because, when a job comes off, or turns out 
badly, you will take the blame generally, no matter 
whether it is your fault or not. A job may be made 
to last awhile by a waterproof coating, or by sheath- 
ing with thin lumber, but it is only a question of time 
when the lining material will become water-soaked 
and spoil the paint or paper, to your discredit. I 
have usually been too busy to take jobs of this kind. 
If the water can be cut off, the next thing is to dry 
the wall, which you can do at the surface only by 
setting a stove near it, or with the flame of a paint 
burner; then, after all your trouble, the water, which 
remains in the wall, if of brick or stone, may find its 
way to the surface, and destroy your work. Sheet 
lead cemented to the wall will answer a good purpose 
for a time, but the dampness will finally destroy the 
cement and let the metal loose. 

Battening out for lath and plaster is the best for 
basement or damp stone walls, but that is the plas- 
terer's work, and is rarely ever done except in pri- 
vate residences. 

Battening and canvasing is next best; nail your 
battens up and down 18 inches apart. Have the 
canvas stitched in sheets the right size to cover the 
large blank spaces of the wall. Then stretch and 
tack it on the battens, and give it a coat of glue and 
alum size. 



Practical House Painter. 75 

When dampness is caused by condensation the beat 
remedy is to remove the cause and dry the wall. 

TO PAPER ON A BOARD PARTITION. 

When paper is pasted on boards, it must crack, 
when the lumber shrinks. If you paste cloth over the 
cracks, it must crack, if the cracks open further than 
the cloth will stretch. When you tack cloth on a 
partition and size it, if the size goes through the 
cloth and sticks it fast to the boards, it will be likely 
to crack when the lumber shrinks. For a good job 
I would advise that you first cover the partition with 
paper tacked on, then when you size the cloth, it will 
stick to the paper, and not to the boards. I have met 
with uniform success in this way ; because the boards 
are left free to shrink and swell without breaking the 
cloth or paper. I like to sew the cloth together with 
a running seam in pieces large enough to cover all 
broad spaces, turn the smooth side out, stretch well, 
and fasten the edges only; drive the tacks an inch 
from the edges of the cloth, so that you can fasten 
them down smoothly with paste. When a man has 
been unwise enough to put a board partition across 
one end of an otherwise fine room, and is willing to 
pay for his folly: first, take measurements of the 
blank spaces, and sew together some fairly strong 
unbleached muslin, stretch on frames, and give it a 
coat of glue and alum size, and whiting; when dry, 
carefully fit each piece in its place and tack it an 
inch from the edges and fasten the edges down 



76 Practical House Painter. 

smooth with strong flour paste. Tack only at the 
edges, and if you are careful to butt edge the differ- 
ent pieces over the doors, etc., you can make a nice 
smooth job in this way. By using this method the 
paste will not stick the cloth to the wall. Use tinned 
tacks to prevent rust. 

SANDPAPERING. 

This is a job none of us like very well, but since 
it must be done, it is worth while to be able to do 
it to the best advantage. The first thing to look for 
is good paper. To test the strength of the sand, rub 
two pieces together, and if the sand don't fly off, it 
is good in that respect ; next see if the paper is tough 
and will not tear easily. Chalk the back of your 
paper before you double it and it will not slip. 
Don't lose time using old, worn-out paper. New 
paper will, of course, cut faster than old paper, and 
the difference in the time gained by using sharp 
paper will pay for the new paper twice over. Using 
old dull paper is like trying to save money by using 
an old stub brush. Better use up fifty cents' worth 
of paper than to fool away dollars' worth of time 
trying to save money by using old paper. 

If you have old, hard paint to cut down, which 
dry sandpaper will not touch, keep the work wet with 
benzine, and you will be surprised to see how fast 
the sandpaper will cut the paint. To put on benzine 
use a small spring bottomed can, such as is used for 
oiling machinery. You can use any grade of sandpa- 



Practical House Painter. 77 

per, and it will not soak up or gum. No. 1 paper is the 
best for this purpose. A good deal of time may be 
lost where scrapers could be used to much better 
advantage. A broad, flat scraper to shove endwise is 
always in order, and a few narrow ones with vari- 
ous shaped ends to fit in headings, moldings, etc., are 
a great help. 

A STENCILED BORDER. 

This makes a nice finish for a painted or kalso- 
mined room. To make it look at its best, paint a 
stripe as wide as your stencil in a pleasant contrast 
to the paint on the room and put the stencil on that 
in soft harmonizing colors. 

REPAINTING SCALED WORK. 

To repaint a job which has commenced to scale, 
without taking off all the old paint, is very uncertain 
work, but if you have to try it, have it understood in 
writing, or before witnesses, that it is done at the 
owner's risk. First scrape off the loose paint, then 
go over the job with raw oil ; put it on freely and let 
it stand until dry; then scrape off all the paint loos- 
ened by the oil, and coat up with strictly pure white 
lead and oil. Avoid zinc, and mixtures of zinc, and 
barytes, on jobs of this kind; because they are more 
or less liable to crack, and pull off more of the old 
paint. White lead and oil lightly tinted will liold 
it if anything will. Use raw oil and a little good 
japan. 



78 Practical House Painter. 

TO MIX WATER COLORS. 

Light weight colors which will not mix well with 
water may be easily mixed to a stiff paste \\dth mo- 
lasses or sirup, then mix in glue size for a binder 
and thin with water. 

TO SIZE MUSLIN FOR LETTERING. 

Use a thin size of white glue in water, or a thin 
starch paste. For a sign to stand weather, dissolve 
white wax in turpentine by heat. Melt the wax in 
a kettle, then take it outside and by degrees add suffi- 
cient spirits of turpentine and make a thin size. 

One ounce of wax to the quart of turps is about 
right. Put it on warm with a brush. 

ANOTHER FOR WHITE WORK. 

Slake a little good, fresh lime in hot water and 
mix a size with skim milk. Then strain through 
cheese cloth. This size is, when dry, insoluble in 
water and will hold lettering as long as the cloth 
lasts. May be tinted. 



Practical House Painter. 79 

No. 4. OLD STYLE EXTENDED. 

A B C D E F 
G H I J K L M 
N O P Q R S T 

UVWXYZ&,. 

abcdefgli 
i j k 1 m n o 
p q r s t ui V 
w X y z 12 3 

4 6 6 7 8 9 O 



Practical House Painter. 81 

TEST OF THE PURITY OF WHITE LEAD. 

The following is an infallible and simple commer- 
cial test of the purity of white lead : 

Take a piece of firm, close-grained charcoal, and 
near one end of it scoop out a cavity about half an 
inch in diameter and a quarter of an inch in depth. 
Place in the cavity a sample of the lead to be tested, 
about the size of a small pea, and apply to it con- 
tinuously the blue or hottest part of the flame of the 
blow-pipe; if the sample be strictly pure it will, in 
a very short time, say two minutes, be reduced to 
metallic lead, leaving no residue; but if it be adul- 
terated, even to the extent of 10 per cent only, with 
oxide of zinc, sulphate of baryta, whiting or any other 
carbonate of lime (which substances are the prin- 
cipal adulterations used), or if it be composed en- 
tirely of these materials, as is sometimes the case with 
cheap lead (so-called), it cannot be reduced, but will 
remain on the charcoal an infuscatible mass. 

A blow-pipe can be obtained from any jeweler at 
small cost. An alcohol lamp, star candle, or a lard 
oil lamp furnishes the best flame for use of the blow- 
pipe. This test is very simple and anyone can very 
soon learn to make it with ease and skill. 

POLISH TO RENOVATE VARNISHED WORK. 

One quart good vinegar, 2 ounces butter of anti- 
mony, 2 ounces alcohol, 1 quart oil. Shake before 
using. 



82 Practical House Painter. 





BRONZES — COLORS. 




White, 


Silver^ 


Flesh, 


Light Gold, 


Dark Gold, 


Eich Gold, 


Lemon, 


Orange, 


Fire, 


Copper, 


Carmine, 


Crimson, 


Lilac, 


Violet, 


Brown, 



Light and Dark Greens. 

BLACK VARNISH FOR IRON. 

Asphaltum, 2 pounds. 

Boiled linseed oil, 1 pint. 

Spirits turpentine, 2 quarts. 

Melt the asphaltum with the oil in an iron kettle. 
Stir well before removing from the fire. When 
partly cool add the turpentine and a little good 
japan. 

TO FREE BENZINE FROM ITS OFFENSIVE ODOR. 

To deodorize benzine, add 3 ounces quicklime to 
the gallon of benzine; shake well. Let the lime set- 
tle and pour off and filter the benzine. 

PAINT TO PRE\^NT WOOD EXPOSED TO THE GROUND 
FROM ROTTING. 

Take of linseed oil, 4 parts; whiting, 40 parts; 
rosin, 50 parts; clean sand, 300 parts; heat together 
in a kettle until the rosin melts; then add 2 parts 
sulphate of copper; the mass to be well stirred, and 
thinned to workable consistency with linseed oil. 



Practical House Painter. 83 

RECIPES FOR BLACKBOARD SLATING. 

Dissolve 1 pound shellac in 1 gallon 95 per cent 
alcohol ; then add J pound best powdered ivory black, 
5 ounces finest emery flour, 2 ounces ultramarine 
blue; mix well and keep air tight. When using stir 
frequently. If thick enough to show brush marks, 
add more alcohol; work quick with a fine brush. 

TO MAKE A BLACKBOARD ON COMMON PLASTER. 

Stop all cracks and holes with plaster paris mixed 
in glue size. When dry sandpaper until all is smooth ; 
then paper the wall with white blank wall paper, butt 
the edges, put on with strong paste, and be careful to 
rub out all blisters. When dry prime with oil paint, 
then sandpaper with fine paper, and put on two coats 
of above slating. This makes an excellent black- 
board. Boards which I made in this way twenty 
years ago are in good shape yet, and will last for 
years to come with an occasional repainting. 

CHEAP SLATING^ BUT GOOD. 

Mix lamp black, 4 parts ; ultramarine blue, 1 part, 
by weight, in turpentine, with sufficient good japan 
and a very little oil to bind it, then add one part by 
weight of fine pumice-stone. Have it thin enough to 
flow on and not leave brush marks. 

WATERPROOF OIL RUBBER PAINT FOR CLOTH. 

Melt 2J pounds of India rubber in | gallon of 
boiled oil by boiling. If too thick, add more oil ; if 



84 Practical House Painter. 

too thin, add more rubber, and a little japan to dry 
it. Apply warm. 

TO CLEAN PAINT. 

Have some whiting on a plate, then dip a piece of 
flannel in warm, soft water and squeeze nearly dry, 
then take up some of the whiting by dipping the 
flannel in it, and rub the paint until it looks clean, 
then rub dry with a soft cloth or chamois skin. 

GOOD QUICK STAIN FOR A BRICK CHIMNEY. 

For red stain, take Venetian red, 2 parts; yellow 
ochre, 1 part — both dry — and mix with skim milk. 
For yellow stain, use water-lime, tinted with yellow 
ochre. Mix as above. 

Skim milk when mixed with common quicklime, 
Portland cement, or Venetian red, is converted into 
an insoluble binder, which renders the mixture water- 
proof, so that it will not wash off when wet ; neither 
will it rub up when dry. Other pigments can be 
added, by way of coloring, up to 25 per cent, without 
affecting the insolubility of the paint. 

For a brick wall, which has not been rubbed or 
painted, Venetian red toned down with yellow ochre, 
beats any glue and acid mixture for durability. 

TO CLEAN DOOR PLATES. 

Put on with a rag a weak solution of ammonia in 
water, and rub to dryness. 



Practical House Painter, 85 

TO CLEAN VARNISHED PAINT. 

In a gallon of water, boil a pound of wheat bran, 
and wash the varnish with the water. 

SLOWING THE DRYING OF PAINT. 

In wall painting or otherwise, especially in hot 
weather, if the paint dries so fast as to show laps 
in spite of your best efforts with the brush, the addi- 
tion of a little cotton seed oil will make the paint 
dry slower without hurting the gloss; or if you are 
using flat color, and it dries too fast, a little cotton 
seed oil will make it dry slower, and not make a 
gloss. You can, by a little experiment, determine 
how much of cotton seed oil to use in each case. 

FINE BRONZE FOR METALS. 

Eed aniline (fuchsine), 20 parts; purple aniline, 
10 parts; 95 per cent alcohol, 200 parts; acid ben- 
zoic, 10 parts. Dissolve the colors in the spirit in a 
porcelain vessel in a water or sand bath; add the 
Qcid and boil until the mixture changes from a green- 
ish color to a beautiful bronze color. Lay it on the 
bright metal with a brush. 

REPAINTING BLISTERED DOORS. 

When the paint commences to blister or scale on a 
door, it is very liable to keep on blistering and scal- 
ing from time to time, as long as any of the old paint 
is left on the door, no matter how carefully it may be 



86 Practical House Painter. 

repainted, because in most cases whatever caused the 
paint to scale off in spots, weakened the entire coat 
of paint on the door, making it liable to raise up, 
or come off in other places, whenever exposed to any 
extra strain, such as sun heat, or the drying of new 
coats of paint or varnish over it; hence, to have a 
sure thing on painting a scaled or blistered door, take 
off all the old paint. Put on a thin prime of pure 
white lead and linseed oil ; use the priming sparingly 
and ruh it out thin; let the prime dry and coat up 
with lead and oil paint, mixed with good body; put 
in a little turps and spread the paint out thin, so it 
will dry solid; rub each coat in the same way; give 
each coat time to dry solid. For work to be var- 
nished, prime as above, and coat up flat. I think 
blistering is often caused by flowing on too much 
paint having too much oil in it, in proportion to the 
pigment, hence it does not dry solid, the oil is soft- 
ened and expanded by heat, and the coating, which is 
more of an oil skin than a body of paint, lets go its 
hold on the wood and puffs out in a blister to make 
room for the softened and expanding oil skin. If 
painters will mix their paint with good body, and use 
more elbow grease in rubbing it out, they will have 
less trouble with blisters. 

FIREPROOF PAINT FOR ROOFS^ ETC. 

A recipe published thirty years ago in the Maine 
Farmer : 

Slake stone lime by putting it into a tub to be 



Practical House Painter. 87 

covered to keep in the steam. When slacked pass the 
powder through a fine sieve, and to each 6 quarts 
of it add 1 quart rock salt, and water, 1 gallon ; then 
boil and skim clean. To each five gallons of this add 
pulverized alum, 1 pound; pulverized copperas, ^ 
pound; then slowly add powdered potash, | pound; 
then add hardwood ashes sifted, 4 pounds; now add 
any color and apply with a brush. This paint stops 
small leaks in roofs, prevents moss, is incombustible, 
and renders brick waterproof. It is durable as stone. 

VARNISH FOR IRON. 

Genuine asphaltum 8 pounds, melt in an iron 
kettle, slowly adding boiled linseed oil, 5 gallons; 
litharge, 1 pound, and sulphate of zinc, J pound; 
continue to boil three hours, then add dark gum 
amber, IJ pounds, and boil two hours longer. When 
cool thin with turpentine to good working consist- 
ency. 

BLACK VARNISH FOR IRON. 

Genuine asphaltum (not coal tar imitation), 1 
pound ; lamp black, ^ pound ; rosin, J pound ; spirits 
turpentine, 1 quart. Dissolve the asphaltum and 
rosin in the turpentine, then rub up the lamp black 
with linseed oil, only sufficient to form a paste, and 
mix with the others. 

TO MIX DRY LAMP BLACK. 

First cut it up in benzine or turpentine to a thick 
paste, stir well and add linsoed oil ; if the black is to 



88 Practical House Painter. 

be used as an oil paint, a little at first, stir well and 
you may add more. In this way you will have no 
trouble in mixing it with other paint, if you do it 
when the paint is rather stiff. 

TO CLEAN BRASS. 

One-half ounce oxalic acid, 3 ounces rotten stone, 
i ounce gum arable, each in powder; made into a 
paste with sweet oil. Use sparingly and rub dry with 
flannel. 

DIPPING PAINT. 

Grind dry colors in japan and turps, with only 
enough Japan to bind the pigment. When dry varnish, 
use any pigment you like, or use bolted whiting and 
color as you like. 

TO MAKE WAX FINISH FOR FLOORS. 

Take 2 ounces pearlash and 2 pounds white wax. 
Slice the wax thin, and boil it with the pearlash in 
2 quarts of water; stir until the wax is melted and 
unites with the water. 

Put on the finish with a brush, and polish with 
cloth or plush. 

This finish will be good only for light service. 

SPIRIT VARNISHES. 

There are numerous recipes which might be given 
here for making the fine elastic varnishes, but it 
would not be practicable for the painter to make 
them, even if he had the requisite skill and expert- 



Practical House Painter. 89 

eDce, but with spirit varnishes it is very different, and 
the painter can make them by a formula as well as 
an expert can. (For formulas for white and orange 
shellac varnish see article on wood finishing.) For 
inside work, where the family is living at the time 
the work is being done, the alcohol varnish is prefer- 
able. First, because it dries very quickly, and second, 
because it is free from sickening or disagreeable 
odors. 

Below are several recipes for making varnishes, 
which dry hard and lustrous. The spirit used is 
wood or grain alcohol ; in either case, the spirit should 
be 95 per cent proof. 

BROWN HARD SPIRIT VARNISH (SELECTED). 

1. Sandarac, 1 pound; shellac, ^ pound; gum 
elemi, 4 ounces; Venice turpentine, 4 ounces; spirit, 
1 gallon. 

2. Gum sandarac, IJ pounds; shellac, 1 pound; 
spirit, 1 gallon. After the gums are dissolved, put 
in rosin turpentine varnish, 1 pint. This makes a 
good varnish, not as quick drying as pure spirit var- 
nishes. 

A brown varnish may be made by mixing shellac, 
IJ pounds; pale rosin, IJ pounds; spirit, 2 gallons. 

WHITE HARD VARNISH. 

1. Sandarac, 2 J pounds ; gum thus, 1 pound ; spirit, 
1 gallon. 



90 Practical House Painter. 

2. Mastic, J pound; sandarac, 2 pounds; elemi 
gum, 4 ounces ; spirit, 1 gallon. 

3. Mastic, i pound; sandarac, 1 pound; turps, 2 
ounces; spirit, 1 gallon. 

These are all prepared by mixing and setting in 
a warm place until the gums are dissolved, then they 
are ready for use. Shake occasionally. For fine work 
strain carefully. 

PURE WHITE VARNISHES. 

1. Pale manila copal, 8 ounces; gum camphor, 
1 ounce; mastic, 2 ounces; Venice turpentine, 1 
ounce; spirit, 1 quart. 

2. Sandarac, 8 ounces; mastic, 2 ounces; Canada 
balsam, 4 ounces; spirit, 1 quart. 

3. Sandarac, 8 ounces; damar, 4 ounces; gum" 
thus, 8 ounces ; manila copal, 8 ounces ; elemi, 8 
ounces; spirit, J gallon. This is a good pale article. 

4. Gum thus, 8 ounces; gum benzoin, 4 ounces; 
manila elemi, 4 ounces; spirit, 1 quart. 

VARNISH PAINTS. 

These are made by mixing opaque pigments with 
almost any varnish, using sufficient turps to make 
them spread well. 

GOLD VARNISH. 

Shellac, 8 ounces; sandarac, 8 ounces; mastic, 8 
ounces ; gamboge, 2 ounces ; dragon's blood, 1 ounce ; 
turmeric, 4 ounces; spirit, 1 gallon. 



Practical House Painter. 91 

FURNITURE VARNISH. 

Shellac, IJ pounds; sandarac, 4 ounces; mastic, 4 
ounces; spirit, 1 gallon. 

DAMAR VARNISH. 

Damar, 1 ounce; sandarac, 5 ounces, mastic, 1 
ounce; turps, 20 ounces. Digest at gentle heat until 
dissolved. If necessary add more turps to bring 
down to the proper consistency. 

LACQUERS FOR BRASS AND TIN. 

Pale gold lacquer. — Spirit, 1 gallon; orange shel- 
lac, 1 ounce; gamboge, J ounce. 

Deep gold. — Orange shellac, 10 ounces; turmeric, 
4 ounces; gamboge, 4 ounces; dragon's blood, -J 
ounce; spirit, | gallon. 

Brass lacquer. — Shellac, 14 ounces; turmeric, 4 
ounces; annotto, 1 ounce; saffron, | ounce; spirit, 

1 gallon. 

LEATHER VARNISH (bLACK). 

Shellac, 12 ounces; gum thus, 5 ounces; sandarac, 

2 ounces ; lamp black, 1 ounce ; turpentine, 4 ounces ; 
spirit, f gallon. 

Mix the ingredients, and give them time to dissolve 
in the spirit in a warm place. A shake-up now and 
then will quicken the process. 

PAPER hanger's OUTFIT. 

Bib overalls, large pocket in front, side pockets 
for rule and shears, long trimming shears, shorter 



d2 Practical House Painter. 

wet shears, straight edge, paste board, plumb bob, 
rule, paper brush, paste pail, size kettle, step-ladders 
and rollers, some sandpaper, soft cloths and long 
blotting-paper to use under your roller on seams, 
when needed, and a plank for scaffold, when paper- 
ing ceilings. For common sized rooms two step-lad- 
ders are good in the place of trestles to hold up the 
plank. For butt edging I can recommend James 
Marks' paper cutters. See description on anothei 
page. 

PAPER hangers' paste. 

Beat up four pounds of sifted wheat flour in cold 
water sufficient to make a stiff batter; beat out all 
the lumps, then add enough cold water to make it 
like pudding batter. Then pour in a little hot water 
and stir, then pour in hot water fast, and stir until 
the paste swells and thickens, and turns darker. It 
is then cooked. To keep the paste from "going 
back" and staining the paper, add about two ounces 
of powdered or well pounded alum to the boiling 
water which you pour on the batter. This will make 
three-quarters of a common wooden pail full of paste. 
It will do better and go further if you let it cool 
before using. Turn a little cold water on the top 
to prevent it skinning over while you wait for it to 
cool. When ready to use it, thin with cold water, 
until it works easily under the brush, and according 
to the wall. A very rough porous wall needs a stout 
paste and plenty of it, while a hard, smooth wall 



Practical House Painter. * 93 

should have the paste thinned and less of it. I have 
known paper to crack and fall off from a smooth 
wall, because too much or too thick paste was put on. 
Just enough to cement the paper to such a wall is 
best; a bod}^ of paste between the paper and plaster 
will decay and peel off, and take the paper with it. 
The other extreme must be avoided also. Some 
hangers prepare this paste without the alum. 

If hanging paper on a glossy painted surface, 
leave out the alum and add one-half pint of nice 
clear sirup to each gallon of paste. 

TO MAKE A PASTE FOR PAPERING OVER PAINTED OR 
VARNISHED WALLS. 

In a kettle mix some flour in water in the same 
way as in the above formula, but make the batter 
thinner. To each gallon of the batter add one ounce 
of powdered resin. Set the kettle on a moderate 
fire, and keep stirring it until it boils and thickens, 
and the resin is melted into the paste. When cool, 
thin down with a weak solution of gum arable. 

LIQUID GLUE. 

Fine glue dissolved in alcohol makes a nice binder 
for fine water colors. 

TO CRYSTALIZE GLASS. 

Lay the glass fiat and flow heavy alum water over 
it. Let it dry. 



94 _ Practical House Painter, 

SIZE FOR WALLS BEFORE PAPERING OR KALSOMINING. 

One pound good white glue, 1 pound good bar 
soap, 2 pounds pulverized alum. Dissolve each sep- 
arately in one quart boiling water, having first soaked 
the glue. Mix the glue and soap water, and then 
slowly add the alum water, stirring all the time. 
Add cold water to make one gallon. 

STAIN OAK WOOD. 

Wash with a solution of bi-chromate of potash and 
acid water. One ounce to a quart of water. 

SIZING WALLS. 

"Anybody can do it !" Yes, but it takes an ex- 
pert to do it right. It is not a difficult matter to 
make paper stick to whitewash, but the whitewash 
splits as far in as the paste goes, and a part of it 
invariably sticks to the paper when it comes off and 
a part of it is left on the wall. As a rule, if you 
size whitewash with flour paste and let it stand a few 
days it will crack and roll up. Now, pure glue size 
does not have this effect upon whitewash, but, on 
the contrary, it not only acts as a binder, but as an 
intervening coat between the paste and the whitewash. 
In other words, the glue size will stick the whitewash 
fast without causing it to crack, and the paste will 
adhere to the glue size without bad effects upon 
either. Now, in order to bind the whitewash, the 
glue should penetrate as far as possible. Hence, the 



Practical House Painter. ^5 

Size should be put on warm, and the room should be 
warm, otherwise the glue will get cold and stiff like 
jelly before it has time to penetrate; hence it will 
remain on the surface instead of going into white- 
wash as a binder. The idea is to get all you can into 
the wall and leave as little as possible on the outside. 
Another thing to look after is the quality of the 
glue. Very much of the white glue found on the 
market is not genuine glue. Some of it is adulter- 
ated with starch and white clay, some of it is not 
glue at all. A glue which will dissolve in cold water 
is not good glue, or if it melts readily in hot water 
without being soaked an hour or two in cold water, 
it is not first-class. If it has a dead white look it is 
not good. Good glue should be glossy and semi- 
transVrent, and should soften and swell in cold 
water, but not dissolve in it. When put into hot 
water without being first soaked in cold water, it 
should not dissolve at once, but form into a lump 
and resist the action of the hot water for some time. 

HOW TO APPLY WHITE ENAMELED LETTERS TO GLASS. 

An extract from a circular issued by the manufac- 
turers of these letters : 

Having thoroughly cleaned the window and freed 
it from grease, draw with white marking chalk on 
front of it the plan or arrangement of outline it is 
intended to adopt— straight or curved, as the case 
may be. A rule is used for marking the straight lines 
and a piece of twine for th^ curved lines. Now divide 



96 Practical House Painter. 

these guide lines up into as man}^ spaces as there 
are letters to go on, carefully proportioning them. 
Then apply the cement to the back of the letters with 
a knife, laying on equally around both the inside 
edges. Place the letter upon the window in the 
space marked for it and work it up and down, back 
and forth, pressing against the glass, so as to expel 
the air and secure a good adhesion, and taking care 
to press equally on top and bottom of the letter, as 
otherwise there is a likelihood of breaking. It is 
advisable, in cementing larger sized letters than six 
inches, to leave the letters lay for an hour after 
placing the cement around the edges, and then to 
give another coat of cement and attach the letters 
immediately. The object is to prevent all the cement 
from working inside the concave parts of the let- 
ters. In affixing larger and heavy letters, small 
pieces of beeswax (or, in summer, sealing wax) 
should be employed to keep them in position until 
the cement sets. As soon as the letters are attached to 
the glass take a small stick of wood, sharpen it on 
the end and clean away all superfluous cement, keep- 
ing the end of the stick constantly wet. Particular 
care should be taken to leave no openings between 
the letters and the glass (especially around the top 
edges) which would allow water to get in between. 
If wax has been used, remove it after a few days 
and clean with a rag. The sign is then complete for 



Practical House Painter. 97 

long service. The above method will answer equally 
well on any smooth surface such as stone, iron, mar- 
ble, wood. 

To make the cement, mix two parts of white lead 
ground in oil with three parts of dry white lead, and 
thin it down to the consistency of soft putty with 
some good furniture or copal varnish. Then take 
small parts of it and grind them on a stone or glass 
plate in the manner of painters grinding color with 
a bowl or palette knife. This is to be continued un- 
til the cement is entirely smooth and cornless, and 
then it is ready for use. 

To remove enameled letters, the most convenient 
way is to scratch away around the edges all the 
cement you can from under the letters. Use for this 
purpose a very thin knife or a piece of thin sheet 
steel. You will soon reach the soft part of the ce- 
ment ; then cut away with a sawing motion and twist 
them off. Do not attempt to pry the letters off, or 
they may break. If the cement should be very hard, 
say after a number of years, use a little kerosene oil, 
which is applied on the top edges of the letters, so 
as to work in and soften the cement. 

V^ALL SIZING FOR KALSOMINING. 

There are many things about wall sizing, which 
depend largely upon good judgment for success, be- 
cause the treatment must be varied according to 
the condition of the wall or ceiling. A good size 
is made of good white glue, | pound ; alum, 1 pound. 



98 Practical House Painter. 

Dissolve the glue in the usual wa}^; that is, soak 
it in cold water until soft, then pour off the cold 
water and pour on the hot water; and stir until the 
glue is dissolved. 

Dissolve the alum in hot water. 

Then stir the glue, and put in the alum water. 
Thin the mixture with water to the right consistency 
to work well. 

If one coat is not sufficient, give it two ; or if there 
are porous places in the wall, touch them up. 

In many cases a simple glue size is sufficient, but 
if you use the glue and alum size as above directed, 
you ^vill be pretty sure of a good foundation for 
kalsomine. 

One of the most difficult things to overcome in 
preparing ceilings for kalsomine is the water stain, 
which is liable to be invisible until developed by a 
coat of kalsomine. If you find water stains on a 
ceiling and suspect that there may be others which 
do not show, go over the ceiling Tvdth a thin wash 
of whiting mixed in clear water, which when dry will 
develop all hidden stains. To kill a bad stain, first 
put on a coat of oil, japan and turps, equal parts; 
second, put on a coat of good heavy shellac; third, 
give the spots a coat of flat lead. This treatment is 
for dark stains; for light stains a coat or two of 
shellac will stop the stain. It is best to put a coat 
of keg lead thinned with turps over the shellac, be- 
cause kalsomine is liable to scale off from shellac. 



Practical House Painter. 99 

On cheap work, if the stain is not too dark, it may 
be kept back by pasting a piece of paper over it. If 
the wall has been kalsomined it is always in order to 
wash off the old kalsomine. If the work has been 
whitewashed, either take it off or first give it a wash 
of strong vinegar, then a glue size, which, if put on 
thin and plentifully while warm in a warm room, 
is about the best size I know of for whitewash. I 
have often used it successfully when it was not prac- 
ticable on account of the weakness of the ceiling or 
other cause to take off the old whitewash. Two 
thin coats of good glue size on firm whitewash makes 
as fair a foundation for kalsomine as can be made on 
old whitewash. 

When it will not pay you to wash off the old kalso- 
mine, a coat or two of the wall sizing described above 
will make a good foundation. 

SIGN PAINTING. 

To the beginner I will say : Learn the letters ; get 
a variety of alphabets in your head; the more you 
have the better you will be prepared to do a pleasing 
variety of sign writing. A variety of letters arranged 
in alphabets are given in the following pages as a 
convenient means of reference for the painter who 
may desire to refresh his memory, as to the form of 
any letter represented, or to make a study of them 
with a view of acquiring a knowledge of the forma- 
tion of letters generally. 



100 Practical House Painter. 



No. 1. GOTHIC CONDENSED 



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Practical House Painter. 101 

No. 1. GOTHIC CONDENSED— Continued. 

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102 Practical House Painter. 

No. 2. BLANCHARD. 

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Practical House Painter. 103 

No. 4. OLD STYLE EXTENDED. 

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104 Practical House Painter. 

No. 5. LINING GOTHIC. 

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Practical House Painter, 105 

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106 Practical House Painter. 

No. 7. GOTHIC SHADED. 



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Practical House Painter. 107 

No. 8. RONALDSON SLOPE. 

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108 Practical House Painter. 

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Practical House Painter. 108 

No. 12. CASLON OLD STYLE. 

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110 Practical House Painter. 

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Practical House Painter. m 

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112 Practical House Painter. 

No. 14. COLUMBUS. 

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Practical House Painter. 113 

No. 15. BRADLEY. 



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114 Practical House Painter. 

LIST OF PRICES AND MODE OF MEASUREMENT. 

Prices for Painting and Glazing. 

SQUARE MEASURE. 

Plain weatherboarding. close fencing, 
ledge doors. partitions, paling 
fences, etc. All common colors, viz.: 
White, light yellow, slate, pearl, 
light drab or cream color, for each 
coat, per yard 8 cents 

Each coat of varnish 10 cents 

PANEL WORK. 

Flush panel work, panel doors, re- 
cesses, etc., the above colors, for 

each coat, per yard 10 cents 

The same in two colors 12 cents 

The same in three colors 14 cents 

Striping after other work is finished, 

per foot, lineal measure 1 cent 

For expensive or unused colors, per 

yard, additional ] cent 

For each coat of varnish, per yard. .12 cents 
For each coat of shellac, per yard . . 12 cents 

BRICK WORK. 

Per Yard. 

First coat 15 cents 

Second coat 12 cents 

Third coat 10 cents 

Penciling 15 cents 

Mastic or cement, first coat 20 cents 

Additional coats, same as brick. 



Practical House Painter. 115 

INSIDE WALL PAINTING. 

Per Yard. 

First coat 12 cents 

Second coat 10 cents 

Third coat 8 cents 

STOPPING AND CLEANING. 

Ordinary puttying, charge price of first coat for 
the several kinds of work. Puttying longitudinal 
joints in ceilings, siding, floors, etc., to be charged 
from two to four times the price of first coat for 
the several kinds of work, at the discretion of the 
measurer. 

SURFACING^ STAINING AND VARNISHING. 

Each coat surfacing 10 cents 

Each coat stain 8 cents 

Each coat varnish 12 cents 

LINEAL MEASURE. 

Pilasters, architraves, frames^ jambs, base mould- 
ings, etc.: „ T ^ 

° ' Each Coat 

Girth. Per Foot. Varnish. 

1 to 4 inches ic |c 

4 to 6 inches |c 1 c 

6 to 8 inches 1 c l^c 

8 to 10 inches Uc Uc 

10 to 12 inches l^c If c 

12 to 14 inches Ifc 2 c 

14 to 16 inches 2 c 2\q 

16 to 18 inches 2\c 2ic 

18 to 20 inches 2^c 2fc 

20 to 22 inches 2|c 3 c 

22 to 24 inches 3 c 3|c 



116 ' Practical House Painter. 

Larger dimensions taken in square measure. 

Column mantels as above. 

Panel jambs, door casings, etc., to be measured by 
the above rule. 

Plain rosettes, add one foot to length. 

Carved rosettes, add two feet to length. 

Other carved or ornamental work at the discretion 
of the measurer. 

MODE OF MEASURING. 

Begin at wall, press line in all quirks to bead at 
edge of jamb casing for girth. For jambs take inner 
sash rabbet to corner bead, double the height and 
measure between jambs for length. 

STRING BOARD, ETC. 

Per Foot. 

Plain, each coat 2 cents 

Bracketed, each coat 3 cents 

Carved, each coat 4 cents 

Staff beads, each coat ^ cent 

Edge of shelves, each coat ^ cent 

CORNICES AND COLUMNS — PLAIN. 

Per Foot. 

Girth, 1 to 2 feet, each coat 3 cents 

Girth, 2 to 3 feet, each coat 4 cents 

Girth, 3 to 4 feet, each coat. 5 cents 

Girth, 4 to 5 feet each coat 6 cents 

Plain caps on columns, add to length two feet. 
Ornamental caps on columns, add to length four 
feet. 



Practical House Painter. 117 

CORNICES WITH BRACKETS. 

Per Foot. 

Girth 1 to 2 feet, each coat 4 cents 

Girth, 2 to 3 feet, each coat 6 cents 

Girth, 3 to 4 feet, each coat 8 cents 

Girth, 4 to 5 feet, each coat 10 cents 

Girth 5 to 6 feet, each coat 12 cents 

Larger dimensions in proportion. 
Dental cornices, same price as brackets. 

MODE OF MEASURING. 

For girth, begin at top, press line into all quirks 
and over each member to the bottom, and to the 
length add one-half the medium girth of the brack- 
ets multiplied by their number. 

PRIMING OR TRACING AND GLAZING SASH. 

EACH SIZE, PER LIGHT. 

Old 

Priming 

or 
Tracing. 

8 to 10x12 to 14 .$0.0U 

12x16 or 18 OU 

14x24 02 

18x24 03 

24x30 $ .05 

26x36 06 

30x36 08 

36x40 10 

40x44 12 

40x50 14 

40x50 16 

50x60 18 

50x70 20 





Glazing 


New 


and Glass 


Glazing. 


8. S. 


$0.05 


$0.20 


.08 


.35 


.10 


.40 


.14 


.50 




D.8. 


$ .18 


$1.00 


.20 


1.30 


.25 


1.65 


.30 




.35 


.... 


.40 


• . . • 


.50 


.... 


.60 


.... 


.75 


• • • « 



118 Practical House Painter. 

These prices do not apply when called out to glaze 
one or two lights. 

For back puttying add one-quarter, and for bed- 
ding add one-half, to the above rates. 

In new glazing cost of glass not included. 

All breakage at the risk of the owners, if glass is 
furnished by them. To all bills of glass furnished 
by the trade 20 per cent, will be charged additional. 

PLATE GLASS. 

Sizes same as table above, at same prices. Sizes 
above to 90 square feet, 5 per cent, on net cost 
delivered; 90 to 108 square feet, 8 per cent.; 108 
square feet and upwards, 10 per cent. 

Removing old glass, same as above. The owner 
to pay cost of taking up large glass above first floor. 

Unless otherwise provided for, glazier puts glass 
in at his own risk of breakage, but cutting will be 
at owner's risk. 

SANDING. 

First coat of sand equal to two coats of paint, in 
addition to paint. 

Second coat of sand equal to three coats of paint, 
in addition to paint. 

GRAINING — SQUARE MEASURE. 

Per Yard. 

Plain oak $0.40 

Plain walnut or ash 70 

Plain satinwood or maple 70 

Plain mahogany or cherry 70 



Practical House Painter. 



119 



Per Yard. 

Shaded oak $0.50 

Shaded oak 50 

Penciled oak or ash 1.00 

Penciled chestnut or cherry 1.00 

Penciled walnut 1.00 

Rosewood 1.00 

Oak root 1.50 



Girth. 
1 to 4 
4 to G 
6 to 



LINEAL MEASURE. 

Graining. Varnishing. 



.$0.03 


$o.ooi 


. .04 


.01 


. .05 


.ou 


. .06 


.Oli 


. .07 


.01} 


. .08 


.02 


. .09 


.02i 


. .10 


.02^ 



inches, per foot, 
inches, per foot, 
inches, per foot. 
8 to 10 inches, per foot. 
10 to 12 inches, per foot. 
12 to 14 inches, per foot. 
14 to 16 inches, per foot. 
16 to 18 inches, per foot. 
Other members in proportion. 
Graining edges of shelves, per foot, 1\ cents. 
Graining sash, double the price of plain painting; 

MARBLING SQUARE MEASURE. 

White, per yard $0.75 

Other kinds, per yard 1.00 

Varnishing, each coat, per yard 12 

LINEAL MEASURE. 

All members — Per foot — 

from Marbling. Varnishing. 

1 to 8 inches girth $0.08 $0.01 

8 to 10 inches girth 12 .OU 

10 to 12 inches girth 16 OU 

12 to 14 inches girth 18 .02 

14 to 16 inches girth 20 .02i 

Larger members in proportion. 



120 Practical House Painter. 

CLEANING AND KALSOMINING. 

Ceilings and walls, per yard $0.16 

Plain cornices, 1 to 2 feet girth, per foot 02 

Plain cornices, 2 to 4 feet girth, per foot 03 

Add to the above for each color, if more than one, 1 cent 
per foot. 

DEDUCTIONS. 

The price of any work measured and not specified 
in this list shall be fixed by the measurer. 

The measurer is hereby authorized to deduct from 
5 to 20 per cent from the price of any work that in 
his judgment is not first-class. 

FEES FOR MEASURING. 

Jobs amounting to $150 or less 5 per cent 

Jobs amounting to over $150 and less than $500, .4 percent 
Jobs amounting to over $500 and less than 

$1,000 3 per cent 

Jobs amounting to over $1,000 , 2 per cent 

Sign Painting. 

FACIA SIGNS. 

Gold. Plain. 

12 feet long $ 8.00 $ 4.00 

14 feet long 9.00 4.00 

16 feet long 10.00 5.00 

18 feet long 12.00 6.00 

20 feet long 15.00 7.00 

24 feet long 16.50 8.00 

Above includes two coats of paint. 

BRASS SIGNS. 

Sxl4 inches $ 3.50 

4x20 inches 5.00 



Practical House Painter. 121 

6x 8 inches $ 4.00 

6x12 inches 4.50 

8x14 inches 5.00 

10x14 inches 5.00 

12x17 inches 6.00 

14x20 inches 7.00 

18x25 inches 10.00 

24x30 inches 15.00 

Sill signs, per square foot 3.50 

Square signs, per square foot 3.00 

TO MAKE HARD PUTTY. 

For Carriage Worlc. 

Mix equal parts of dry and keg white 

lead with equal parts of rubbing varnish and gold size 
japan ; mix thoroughly and pound well. 

For Hurried Work. 

Mix dry white lead with equal parts of rubbing 
varnish and gold size japan. Keep hard putty cov- 
ered in water when not in use. 

TO MAKE AND APPLY KALSOMINE. 

Soak one pound good white glue in cold water until 
soft, then pour off the cold water, and dissolve the 
glue in hot water. Mix twenty pounds of good whit- 
ing in water to a thick paste; dissolve one pound of 
alum in water, and add it to the mixture. Before 
mixing the glue and whiting, put in your tinting 
colors, which should be ground in water. Test your 
color by dipping in a piece of paper and letting it 



1^2 Practical House Painter. 

dry. After you put in the glue, test in the same way 
to see if there is enough glue to bind it well, then 
set your kalsomine aside to get cold. 

Thin to good workable consistency with cold water. 

Have in enough glue to hold it from washing up 
when you have to put on a second coat. Too much 
glue will cause the kalsomine to go on hard, and 
crack and scale off when dry. If it dries too fast, add 
two ounces of glycerine to one gallon of kalsomine. 
Have good staging, and two men for a good sized 
room. Use good kalsomine brushes, and work fast. 
Lay on the kalsomine freely ; the beauty of the work 
will depend upon how you lay it off, and level it up. 
Put it on not as you would paint, all one way, but 
work your brush in all directions, until your work is 
level, then carefully lay it off with light strokes. 

For a white job put in a little blue. If you have 
never done a job of kalsomining, and have no one to 
aid you, practice on the wall in your shop or any 
other place, until you get the knack of it. Cover a 
small space and see how it comes out. 

Always finish lightly with the point of your brush. 
If an edge dries, stop and wet it with a clean brush 
and clear water; if careful you can join to it without 
showing "laps." If you find you have missed any 
spots wet the edges in the same way, and carefully 
touch them up with kalsomine. If you find after all 
your precautions, a water stain has come through your 
kalsomine, wet the place with a solution of sugar of 



Practical House Painter. 123 

iead, made in proportion of 1 ounce sugar of lead to 
1 quart of rain water; it may kill the stain. See 
article on wall sizing and water stains, page 39. 

Eough places in plaster take more color than a 
smooth wall, hence they are liable to show spots ; so it 
stands you in hand to make such places smooth as 
possible ; to do this take off the rough sand with sand- 
paper and knife or trowel on a thin coat of plaster 
paris, or give the rough places an extra coat or two ot 
size. Fill all cracks and holes, and give the filling 
time to dry before putting on the size, because other- 
wise it will take more color than the balance of the 
wall and your work will look spotted. 

In the kalsomining season have some large tubs 
and mix up as much whiting in hot water as you will 
need for several days. Add your color, glue, size and 
alum to as much only as you want for immediate use. 
In hot weather I use liquid glue. 

LIQUID GLUE FOR KALSOMINE AND WALL SIZING. 

For use in hot weather, a liquid glue which will 
not decompose and smell badly is very desirable to 
the workmen and the inmates of the house. 

No. 1. To make such a glue fill a bottle a little 
more than half full of broken up good white glue, and 
fill the bottle with common whisky or equal parts of 
alcohol and water. Let it stand a few days and it 
will dissolve the glue; this glue will keep for years. 
Keep the bottle corked. 

No. 2. Melt your glue in the usual way, thick as 



124 Practical House Painter, 

you will want it for any purpose, then put in J or | 
ounce nictric acid to each pound of glue used ; enough 
to give the glue a sour taste, like vinegar. The acid 
keeps it in a liquid state, and from spoiling. If you 
melt the glue in an iron kettle pour it into a wooden 
vessel, before you add the acid, otherwise the acid will 
act on the iron and blacken the glue. When wanted 
for use it can be thinned as desired with cold water ; 
a cask full of this made up and kept air tight so the 
water will not evaporate will be found very handy to 
draw from, when you want a little in a hurry for glue 
size or kalsomine. When you make it up in this way 
put in at least 1 ounce of acid to the pound of glue 
to make sure it will keep liquid, so you can draw it 
from the cask. 

Acetic acid will answer the same purpose as nitric 
acid, but it will take more of it and make the liquid 
glue more expensive. 

TO PREPARE AN OLD WALL FOR PAINT OR PAPER. 

First cut out all the cracks V shape, clean out the 
holes and bevel the edges same as the cracks. Then 
fill with fine plaster paris mixed with thin glue size. 
Fill with care; when dry, sandpaper the fillino- 
smooth and level. If the wall is sandy or rough, sand- 
paper it smooth as you can. If the holes are large, 
have a plasterer stop them, if you can; if you fail 
in that, and the job must be done soon, fit in thin 
boards, fill around the edges with plaster, and paste 
on cloth, or extra paper; but to do a nice job you 



Practical House Painter. 125 

must insist od having the large holes plastered. If 
the hole is up out of reach,, and too large for you to 
fill, cement the edges with plaster, stretch a piece of 
cloth, or extra thickness of paper over it, and it will 
look all right, because the paper will shrink tight 
when it dries. If 3'ou find places where the clinches 
are broken, and the plaster is loose, press the plaster 
back to its place if you can, and cut small holes 
through the plaster and turn small broad headed 
screws into the lath even with the plaster and cement 
around the screws with plaster paris. 

If it is a smooth wall with rough, sandy patches, 
sandpaper down the patches a little below the level 
of the wall, sweep out the loose plaster, give a coat of 
glue size, and knife or trowel in a coat of plaster 
paris mixed with glue size or vinegar, and when dry, 
sandpaper until smooth and level. 

There are several points to be considered and pro- 
vided for in filling cracks in a plastered wall prepar- 
atory to painting. First, are the edges of the cracked 
wall level ? To determine this, lay your rule across the 
crack, and if you find the plaster on one side of the 
crack higher than the other, it shows that side of 
the wall has sprung out of place, because the laths 
are loose or the clinches are broken. The first thing 
on the program is to get the highest edges back to 
"place." Failing in that, the next best thing is to 
raise the other side. If that scheme don't work, the 
next method is to use sandpaper on a block and rub 



126 Practical House Painter. 

down the highest side with a wide bevel to match 
the lowest, otherwise your filling will be at an angle 
more or less acute with the general surface of the 
wall, and cast a shadow or reflect the light according 
to which way the light falls upon it, and the place 
where the crack wa^ will "show" in spite of your best 
efforts to conceal it. If you find one edge of a crack 
higher than the other, gently press against it, and if 
it goes back to place, cement it with plaster paris wet 
up in clear water, and it will set in three minutes 
hard enough to hold the plaster in place. If the loose 
edge will not go back by gentle pressure, lay a piece 
of board over it and push hard as you dare to and 
not crush the plaster. If it is still obstinate, drill 
out a piece and insert a bent wire or other instrument 
made on purpose, and see if you can feel the obstruc- 
tion and remove it. Failing in this, see if you can 
raise up the lower side to a level with the highest 
and cement it fast. If the last scheme is too much 
for your patience and ingenuity, resort to the block 
and sandpaper, and rub down the high side witli a 
wide bevel to match the other. The next point is to 
prevent the paint near the edges of the crack, and 
on the filling which we put in, from drying flat while 
the balance of the wall bears out a gloss. To do 
this we must find out the cause of the "flatting" near 
the edges of the crack and over the "filling." If we 
examine into the matter, we will find that when the 
wall cracked the plaster adjacent was more or less 



Fraetieal House Painter. 127 

fractured and made more porous than the uninjured 
portions of it. Hence, more oil is drawn from the 
paint near the crack than where the wall is solid. 
Now, for the remedy: With a small pointed brush 
wet the edges of the crack with linseed oil until they 
will take no more in. Let the oil dry, and fill the 
crack with plaster mixed with thin glue size, but 
have the top of the filling one-sixth of an inch below 
the surface of the wall. Let the filling dry, and 
with a fine pointed brush paint over the top of the 
filling and the edges of the crack. Let the paint 
dry, and finish filling with hard putty. Let the putty 
dry, and sandpaper the job smooth and level. If 
you have to bevel the highest edge with sandpaper, 
first fill the beveled portion with oil. Let the oil dry, 
and fill the pores with hard putty, because the part 
beveled with sandpaper will be more porous than 
the balance of the wall. Treat and fill all small 
holes by the same method. Filling cracks in this 
way is a little tedious, I admit; but it is the only 
way that I know of to stop a crack in plaster, so it 
will stay stopped and not show after it is painted. 

HOW TO PAINT A PLASTEKED V^ALL. 

Prime with lead and raw oil, tinted like succeed- 
ing coats. Have the prime thin, not more than five 
pounds of white lead to the gallon of oil; add a lit- 
tle benzine or turps to make it more penetrating. 
If the room is cool, warm up your prime before you 
add the benzine or turps. The idea is to have it 



128 Practical House Painter. 

penetrate as much as possible; brush the prime well 
into the wall. If it is a sand wall, brush off the loose 
sand. If it is a smooth one, putty coated or hard fin- 
ished wall, see that there are no lumps or grains of 
sand left on the surface. It is a good idea to pass 
the hand over the wall to feel the lumps, and to 
knock off lumps and grains of sand by going over 
the work with sandpaper. 

For second coat use glue size, made as directed on 
another page. 

Third coat. Mix so as to dry with a gloss, have 
the body fairly thick, and spread it well out. Mix 
with 3 parts linseed oil to 1 part turps. 

Fourth coat. — If this coat is to be flat, mix it 
thick enough to cover well; mix mainly with turps, 
if the weather is hot, or from any other cause the 
paint don't work well, add a little linseed oil. For 
an egg shell gloss, use about 1 part oil and 3 parts 
turps. 

If the wall is to be finished in stipple, mix the 
last coat half oil and half turps, rather thick, and 
add a little japan. To stipple strike the paint evenly 
and continuously with the square end of a large 
brush, made for the purpose ; a new clean duster will 
do. Let the stippler follow the painters. The coat 
of glue size saves two coats of paint. It is put on 
after the prime to keep moisture and air from the 
glue, otherwise it would be liable to decay. 

Use boiled oil in all coats except priming coat. 
Have only enough difference in the color of the dif- 



Practical House Painter. 129 

ferent coats, so you can see where you have painted, 
and not leave holidays; especially in rooms where 
the light is not very good. 

Some painters advocate (especially on hard fin- 
ished wall) a good filling of clear linseed oil, before 
any paint is put on to keep the surface from fire 
cracking. 

It is risky business to paint a new hot wall ; in such 
cases if it must be done before the lime has become 
somewhat neutralized, give it a coat of vinegar, and 
let it stand a day or so before you put on the prime. 
The vinegar will neutralize the lime and not hurt the 
priming. 

TO PREPARE A ROUGH SANDY WALL FOR PAINT OR 

PAPER. 

If you have a rough brown mortar wall to paper 
and want to make the job look smooth as possible, 
first go over it lightly with No. 2 paper to knock off 
the loose and most prominent grains of sand; then 
with No. 2 paper rub down all "cat faces" and trowel 
marks ; level up all hollows with plaster paris wet up 
in thin glue size or vinegar, and you will be ready to 
put on the lining paper. This paper should be soft 
and porous so that it will quickly absorb paste and 
not blister; good white blank wall paper having but 
little color will answer very well for this purpose. 
Start in to hang it with half a strip in width so as 
to break joints with the next coat ; use sufficient paste 



130 Practical House Painter. 

to make the paper stick to the wall; butt the edges 
and be sure when the paper is dry that there are no 
loose places. Eight here is the turning point of your 
job for "good or for bad." 

Pound the lining paper down so closely that all 
the prominent grains of sand will show through, 
and be sure to make it stay there until dry. When 
the lining paper is dry, go over it with good sharp 
No. 1| sandpaper and cut out all the prominent 
grains of sand which show through the paper, being 
careful to rub no more than is necessary to take out 
the sand ; the idea being to cut through to the promi- 
nently projecting grains of sand, and rattle them out. 
Some walls will need a second coat of lining paper 
and another sandpapering, before they are smooth 
enough for anything like a fine job. If the owner 
refuses to stand the expense of putting on lining 
paper, glue size the wall, and when dry, knock off the 
prominent grains of sand with sandpaper and knife 
in plaster paris putty on the rough places. In 
either case, take extra pains with portions of the wall 
where there are side lights, which always magnify 
rough places. Sandy walls may be leveled and 
smoothed somewhat with a coat of kalsomine to hold 
light bodied paper. 

Make a kalsomine of good white glue, 1 pound to 
15 pounds of whiting and half a pound of alum. 
Dissolve the glue and alum in the usual way. When 
the kalsomine is dry, give the surface a thin coat of 



Practical House Painter. 131 

glue size to stop the suction. Let the glue size dry, 
then put on the paper ; use light paste, and be sparing 
of it as you can and make the paper stick. I have 
often noticed that too much or too little paste is 
used in paperhanging ; some walls and some papers 
require more paste than others. Too much paste on 
a smooth wall, or too little on a rough one, makes bad 
work. If you use a roller for seams have it covered 
with short plush. To paint on a wall covered with 
lining paper as above described, first put on a coat of 
glue size. 

TO PAINT OVER NEWLY PLASTERED CRACKS IN WALLS. 

When the painter has to paint over holes and 
cracks in walls recently filled by the plasterer, he will 
be likely to have to deal with plaster made in part of 
fresh lime. In such cases, it is always best to soak 
the newly plastered places with strong vinegar, to kill 
as much as possible the caustic properties of the lime. 
Put on the vinegar plentifully and let it soak in; 
when dry, give the new plaster a coat of size made of 
linseed oil, japan and turpentine ; when dry, put on 
a coat of white shellac before painting. 

FLASHED GLASS SIGNS. 

Flashed glass is clear on one side and colored on 
the other ; the colored glass forming only a thin film 
on one side of the clear glass. We can make elegant 
signs on this glass by etching the letter through the 
colored portion of the glass, making the letters clear 



132 Practical House Painter. 

and the background colored; or by etching out the 
background and leaving the letters colored. Lay out 
the letters on paper, and place it under the glass as a 
guide to work by ; then, with asphaltum varnish cover 
the background and leave the letters free and clear; 
in other words, "cut around them." If you want a 
clear background with colored border and colored let- 
ters, cover the letters and border and leave the back- 
ground free and clear. Then melt some beeswax, 
and when it begins to cool, take up a small portion 
of it with a putty knife and scrape it off on the edge 
of the glass, and repeat the operation until a wall or 
dam is made all around the glass, to hold the acid 
you are about to put on the glass, from running off ; 
then pour on a little hydrofluoric acid, and it will 
etch out the colored glass not covered by the asphalt- 
um in about one hour; then you can pour the acid 
back into your bottle, to be used again. Next wash 
the glass by pouring water over it; then scrape off 
the wax, and take off the asphaltum with turpentine. 
Some painters use a varnish made by melting togeth- 
er equal parts of paraffine and asphaltum and thin- 
ning to working consistency with turpentine. 

FLUORIC ACID, TO MAKE FOR ETCHING PURPOSE^. 

You can make your own fluoric acid (sometimes 
called hydro-fluoric) by getting the fluor spar, pul- 
verizing it and putting as much of it into sulphuric 
acid as the acid will cut or dissolve. 



Practical House Painter. 133 

Druggists through the country do not keep this 
acid generally, but they can get it in the principal 
cities. One ounce will do at least fifty dollars worth 
of work. It is put in gutta percha bottles or lead 
bottles, and must be kept in them when not in use, 
having corks of the same material. Glass, of course, 
will not hold it, as it dissolves the glass, otherwise it 
would not etch upon it. 

LIQUID WOOD FILLERS FOR CHEAP WORK. 

Corn starch and cheap varnish are the principal in' 
gredients of many cheap wood fillers ; the corn starch 
is mixed with the varnish and thinned with turps 
until workable. You can experiment on this idea. 

Corn starch in shellac in proportion of 1 pound to 
the gallon doubles its capacity as a filler. I have 
made and used a filler for cheap work in this way: 
Pale rosin, 2 pounds; boiled oil, 1 gallon; japan, 1 
pint. Melt the rosin in the oil, take the kettle outside, 
and add | gallon turpentine ; stir and when cold add J 
pound of corn starch. Thin with turps until workable. 
Add more or less starch, according to the surface 
you want to fill. These mixtures are all the better if 
run through a paint mill. 

ANOTHER PASTE FILLER. 

Corn starch mixed to a paste with one part linseed 
oil, two parts each japan and rubbing varnish; thin 
to working consistency with turpentine. 



134 Practloal House Painter. 

CARRIAGE PAINTING IN THE VILLAGE SHOP. 
NEAV WORK. 

Prime with white lead, mixed thin in oil, add a 
little japan and turpentine to make the paint dry 
hard and quick; when the priming is dry and hard, 
putty up with hard putty as directed on another page. 
Then follow with two coats of keg lead thinned with 
turpentine; add a little Japan to make it dry hard, 
and a little oil to make it work well. Carefully mix 
and strain your paint. Give the body five coats of 
rough stuff, made as directed on page 144 and a 
guide coat, and when dry, proceed to cut down the 
rough stuff. For this purpose your tools will be sev- 
eral pieces of pumice stone, a pail of water, a large 
flat file, a good sponge and a chamois. Flatten one 
side of your stone for a grinding surface and have no 
thin edges, because they will keep breaking off and 
be liable to get under the stone, and scratch you? 
work. Now, two of the most important things you 
will have to guard against is cutting through the 
rough stuff and lead coats, and scratching the surface. 
There is a great difference in pieces of pumice stone. 
Some are hard and full of flint like particles, which 
will scratch the work; others are softer and of more 
even grit; the light colored and fairly open grained 
pieces are the safest to use. You can tell a fast cut- 
ting stone by its open grain and lightness. The finer 
grades of German rubbing brick and English rub- 
bing stone are also used in rubbing rough stuff'. A 



Practical House Painter. 135 

stone with a broad surfa'^e is preferable for large 
surfaces. 

Have small pieces to rub around the bolt heads and 
other places which are difficult to get at with the 
large stone. The practiced workman can tell the 
moment a stone begins to scratch, both by the sound 
and by the feeling to the hand, and you may train 
your ear and nerve to this degree of sensitiveness; 
until you do so, you will have to look sharp, and 
frequently rub your stone on the file, and clean off 
your work with a sponge full of water to see the con- 
dition of the work. Also by passing your hand back 
and forth across it to determine the condition of it, 
or if there is any large grit on it, liable to get under 
the stone and scratch. Eub until the brush marks 
are gone, etc., which your guide coat will show you. 
Use plenty of water while rubbing. Thoroughly 
wash the body inside and out. When dry^ sandpaper 
lightly over the body to remove any grit which may 
be left on, and to clean out around the irons and 
panels, also to sand off the irons which you have not 
rubbed. Dust and wipe well, and when ready, put 
on a coat of drop black, ground in japan. In mix- 
ing your drop black, stir it before you add any turps, 
then add a little turps, and stir again until it is 
beaten to a smooth, soft paste; then add sufficient 
turps to make a workable paint, thin enough to go 
on easily with a camel hair brush, which for body 
work on buggies should be not less than one and one- 



136 Practical House Painter. 

half inches wide and double thick. Painters disa- 
gree as to the use of oil in this coat. I like to use a 
very little good raw oil, say a teaspoonful to a pint 
of color. It is a good idea to keep a brush on pur- 
pose to coat the inside of the body, because it is not 
usually made as smooth as the outside. Some prac- 
tice putting on the color coat in the morning and the 
color varnish towards evening, but I prefer a longer 
time, say twenty-four hours at least, and more, too, 
especially when I use a little oil in the color coat. 
Bub the color with curled hair or hair cloth, dust well, 
and put on your color varnish; some say with a 
bristle varnish brush, but I prefer to mix it so I can 
use a camel hair brush. For this coat mix drop 
black to a workable paint with equal parts of turps 
and good body varnish. When this coat is dry, give 
the body a coat of good rubbing varnish, using a fine 
bristle varnish brush. Flow on a free coat, lay off 
to right and left, and finish with up and down strokes 
across the work. Never put a full brush at the lower 
edge of the body, because in that case, you will be 
apt to get a fat edge. Watch for sags or runs, which 
you can brush out, if discovered before the varnish 
gets. If a sag or run should get the start of you on 
this coat, and you see it after the varnish begins to 
set, squeeze the varnish out of your brush, wet the 
point of it in turps, and carefully work out the sag or 
run. Now, dust off the running parts, and put on a 
coat of color. Some say, have a little more oil in the 



Practical House Painter. 137 

color for the gear than for the body, but I would not 
advise the use of more. When dry, put on a coat 
of color varnish. When dry, rub down with hair or 
hair cloth, and your gear is ready to stripe. 

To paint a wheel, paint one spoke at a time, paint 
both sides and the edge next to you, then take your 
brush in your left hand and paint the back edge, and 
so on, until the spokes are finished. Next paint the 
hub, then the outside and inside of the felly, then 
finish the gear, being careful to leave no laps. Use 
only fine lines for striping a buggy. On the springs, 
bars, spoke faces, hubs and tongue is all the striping 
needed. Orange chrome, red, gold, bronze and light 
green, all harmonize with black, and either may be 
used for striping a black rig. When ready to var- 
nish, set your gear on trestles. Varnish the wheel 
with a fine bristle varnish brush, and flow on a full 
coat. When done with a wheel, set it running on 
the spindle^ and commence the next, and start it off 
again two or three times, while working at the next 
wheel, and so on with all the wheels ; by this method 
you may avoid runs, and be able to flow on a fuller 
coat than you otherwise could. For a finer job, give 
the gear a coat or two of clear rubbing varnish, and 
rub each coat down with curled hair or hair cloth. 
For a cheap job, rub down the body with hair cloth, 
but for a finer one, rub it out with finely powdered 
pumice stone in water. For this method, you will 
need a pail of clear water, some finely powdered 



138 Practical House Painter. 

pumice stone and a felt pad. The object of this 
work is to take the gloss off the rubbing varnish, and 
leave a smooth coat for the finishing varnish. The 
particular knack is to rub just enough, and then 
stop; a little too much will cut through, and spoil 
the job; and not enough will not give you the best 
possible foundation for your finishing coat of varnish. 
Keep the work washed off as you go, so you can see 
defective places, and rub them out. When done rub- 
bing, the next thing is to wash the body perfectly 
free from grit. Your water brush comes in play here 
to wash around irons, etc., where the pumice might 
lodge ; then with a pail of clear water, rinse the body 
and wipe dry with a chamois skin. Eight here is a 
good time to give the inside of the body a coat of color 
varnish, and to put on your transfers, if you use 
any. Some painters use a barrel for a body stand, 
but one made on purpose, of boards, is better. You 
want to look out for dust in every stage of the work, 
but right here you m7Tst be especially careful, be- 
cause you are about to put on the finishing coat, 
which can neither be sandpapered nor rubbed down. 
You will learn from experience, if not before, that 
you cannot rely altogether upon the dust brush to 
free your work from dust and specks. A large soft 
dry chamois kept for the purpose, and never wet, can 
be used to advantage to wipe off the dust left by the 
brush. A hand bellows is very effective in taking 
dust out of corners where the brush or wiper cannot 



Practical House Painter. 139 

be worked. When you have done all you can with 
the brush and wiper, rub the work over with your 
hand and the sensitive nerves of your fingers will de- 
tect any specks which may still adhere to the surface. 
Some other essentials to a good job of varnishing are 
a clean room, free as possible from dust, clean 
brushes, and cups, and the person of the varnishcr 
so dressed that he will not shed material for specks. 
Have one cup to hold your varnish and another to 
wipe your brush in. Use good varnish and never try 
to varnish a body with the temperature below 70 de- 
grees F. Have a quill sharpened to a point to pick 
out any specks which you may discover on your work, 
because it requires very favorable conditions, and a 
mighty slick workman to prepare and varnish a body, 
and not have it show at least a speck or two. Use a 
fine chiseled bristle brush and know that it is abso- 
lutely free from specks before you commence. Now, 
when you are ready, don't be timid or try to see how 
far you can make your varnish go. Keep in mind 
from the start that the nearer level — that is, a uni- 
form thickness — you can have your coat of varnish the 
less liable it will be to sag or run. Puton3^our varnish 
with a full brush, laying it on right and left, and 
brush as level as you can, then finish with up and 
down strokes, being careful to chisel off the surplus 
at the lower corner to avoid a flat edge. Note — A 
friend of mine, after laying on his varnish right and 
left, finished with diagonal strokes across the surface 



140 Practical House Painter. 

at an angle of 45 degrees, then crossed it again at the 
same angle in an opposite direction. He had "uni- 
form good success. 

For an extra fine job, give the work more coats of 
rubbing varnish, and rub each coat with curled hair, 
or hair cloth; or you may knife on a coat of putty 
made of keg lead and equal parts of turps and japan; 
rub it well in with the flat blade of the knife, and 
when it sets or flats, scrape off all surplus. Sand- 
paper when dry. This may go on in the place of 
third lead. You may, when the job requires it, knife 
on a coat of hard putty, work it down smooth, let it 
dry and cut down with sandpaper. 

OLD WORK. 

There are so many degrees of badness in repair 
work, that it is not possible to cover the entire ground 
in a work of this kind. They run all the way from 
the touch up and varnish job, to the cracked, scaled 
and almost paintless old rigs. For a touch up and 
varnish job, at least one which is in decent shape for 
such work, wash the body, give it a rubbing down 
with fine powdered pumice stone, clean oif and care- 
fully putty cracks, dents, etc., if any; then touch up 
Vvith color, using a small camel's hair pencil, and 
cover only where "viecessary. When dry, give a full 
coat of body varnish. For a better job, give the body a 
coat of black rubbing varnish (provided the body is 
black), then finish with a good coat of wearing body. 
The gear may be treated the same as the body if in 



Practical House Painter. 141 

like condition, but if the felloes are worn bare, lead 
them up and color as you would new work, then 
touch up the balance and varnish. 

The great plague of the paint shop is cracked work, 
which is otherwise solid. Where the varnish is hard 
but peeling, take it off with ammonia; to do this, 
take a side of the body at a time, pour out some am- 
monia in a cup, and put it on with a clean brush 
kept for the purpose. Keep the side wet, until you 
can slice off the varnish with a putty knife; if it 
fails to come off, you must keep it wet longer. If 
the varnish is dead and soft, sandpaper down to a 
solid foundation, then if cracks show sheet up with 
quick hard putty made soft enough to put on with 
a brush, and scrape off with a knife when set. When 
dry, sandpaper and if the cracks are not full, give it 
a second application of putty in the same way. Then 
for a cheap job give it a coat of color varnish, a coat 
of rubbing and a coat of body varnish. 

If you are to do a fine job, and can get pay for it, 
and you find the body cracked, burn off the old paint, 
and commence at the foundation as in new work. For 
a cheap job, lead up the bare places on the gear and 
wheels, give a coat of color and a coat of color varnish 
and finish with heavy gear varnish. For a fine job, 
if the old paint is cracked or scaled, take it off and 
work up from the wood as on a new job. 



142 Practical House Painter. 



ROUGH STUFF. 



1. To make one coat per day rough stuff, take 
three pounds of Reno's filler and one pound of keg 
lead. Mix to stiff paste with equal parts of rubbing 
varnish, and first class japan, thin with turps. Some 
painters add a little raw oil. Grind the filler fine. 

2. French yellow ochre dry, 5 pounds; keg lead 
1| pounds. Mix to stiff paste with equal parts gold 
size, or best brown japan and rubbing varnish; thin 
with turps and add a gill of raw oil. Grind fine. 

CLEANING PHAETON CUSHIONS. 

This old phaeton cushion is too dusty for any use, 
did you say ? I agree with you ; the old cloth-covered 
phaeton cushion is one of the unmitigated nuisances 
which we are often compelled to tolerate in the paint 
shop. When such a cushion is once filled with dust 
its capacity for "shedding" seems to be unlimited. 
The more you beat it and the longer you brush it, the 
more dust comes to the surface. You can take off a 
buggy cushion and relegate it to the backroom, but 
the genius who invented that complicated vehicle 
called a phaeton, nailed the cushions fast to the 
body, and we must take them along with the job, 
dust and all^ from the cleaning floor to the varnish 
room. 

When I am so unfortunate as to have an old phae- 
ton brought to my shop, about the first thing I do 
after cleaning it up is to go for the cushions with 



Practical House Painter. 143 

the sprinkler and wet them down with clean water, 
repeating the operation as often as may be necessary 
to keep in the dust. 

Spoil the cushions ? No ! When you run the rig 
out of the shop the owner will wonder what you 
have done to his cushions to make them look so 
bright. The same operation works well on an old 
cloth-lined top. After you have brushed all you 
think you can afford to, and the dust keeps coming 
to the front, turn the top bottom side up and give 
it a shower from the sprinkler, and I will guarantee 
the dust to lie still long enough for you to dress 
the top and paint the bows. Dust is^he natural 
enemy of the paint shop, and water is one of our 
best weapons to fight it with. 

MIXING QUICK COLOR. 

A quick drying color can be slowed up and made 
to dry to any required time without injuring it, 
while if ground in a slow drying preparation, it can- 
not possibly be quickened without injuring more or 
less the working and covering properties. The work- 
ing is certainly important, and the covering more so. 
The covering property should be strong, because the 
fewer coats of color on a job the better. Thus a 
quick dryer saves both labor and time. 

Japan colors are best when ground stiff, or with 
barely enough liquid to bind them firmly, because 
after being reduced to thinness with turpentine alone 
they will cling to the surface and will not smut. 



144 Practical House Painter. 

The color will then have its greatest covering power. 
Now, by the addition of sufficient pure raw oil to 
give the best working property, and being also made 
to dry flat, the color is as near perfection as pos- 
sible, and the further addition of anything weakens 
the covering power. When an excess of japan is 
used in grinding, the color is thin, there being less 
pigment to the pound; and it is of less value to the 
consumer, while it affords more profit to the manu- 
facturer than w^hen prepared as it should be. 

BLACK VARNISH FOR GASOLINE STOVES, ETC. 

Asphaltum two pounds, boiled linseed oil one pint, 
turpentine two quarts. Melt the asphaltum in an 
iron pot, heat the oil, and add it to the asphaltum 
while hot. Stir well. When partly cool, add the 
turpentine and four ounces of good japan. 

BLACK STENCIL INK. 

Shellac two ounces, borax two ounces, soft water 
twenty ounces, gum arable- two ounces, lampblack 
and indigo sufficient. Boil the shellac and borax in 
the water until dissolved, then add the gum arable; 
dissolve and take the mixture from the fire; when 
cold, add enough lampblack to give it color and 
proper consistency, and a little powdered indigo. 
Keep in glass or earthenware vessels. 

BRONZE FOR BRIGHT METALS. 

Red aniline (fuscine) ten parts, purple aniline 
^\e parts, alcohol 95 per cent, one hundred parts, 



Practical House Painter. 145 

benzoic acid five parts. Add the anilines to the 
alcohol, and dissolve by placing the vessel in a sand 
or water bath. As soon as dissolved, add the benzoic 
acid and boil for five or ten minutes, or until the 
greenish color of the mixture is turned to a brilliant 
light bronze; spread with a brush on bright metal. 

VAKNISH TO FIX PENCIL DRAWINGS. 

Gum mastic three ounces, alcohol one pint. Dis- 
solve and apply with a brush. 

RUST SPOTS ON MARBLE. 

Apply a mixture of 1 part nitric acid and 25 parts 
of water, then rinse with 3 parts water and 1 part 
ammonia. 

WHITEWASH TO SOFTEN. 

To soften old whitewash which you wish to take 
off, wet it thoroughly with a wash made of 1 pound 
of potash, dissolved in 10 quarts of water. 

WATER GLASS FOR FLOORS. 

Clean the floor, fill cracks with water glass cement 
made of water glass and whiting, then put on a 
coat of water glass, to be followed by second coat; 
when dry rub the last coat with pumice stone and 
oil. 

TO FINISH REDWOOD. 

Take one quart of spirits turpentine; add one 
pound of corn starch; quarter of a pound burnt 



146 Practical House Painter. 

sienna; one tablespoonful raw linseed oil and one 
tablespoonful brown japan. Mix thoroughly, apply 
with the brush, let it stand, say, fifteen minutes, rub 
off all you can with fine shavings or a soft rag, let 
it stand at least twenty-four hours that it may sink 
into and harden the fibers of the wood; afterward 
apply two coats of white shellac, rub down well with 
fine flint paper, then put on from two to five coats 
best polishing varnish ; after it is well dried rub with 
water and pumice stone ground very fine; stand a 
day to dry ; after being washed clean with a chamois 
rub with water and rotten stone; dry; wash as be- 
fore clean, and rub with olive oil until dry. Some 
use cork for sandpapering and polishing, but a 
smooth block of hardwood like maple is better. 
When treated in this wav, redwood will be found the 
peer of any wood for real beauty and life as a house 
trim or finish. 

MARKING INK. 

Asphaltum, dissolved in turpentine to a thin fluid, 
will give you an excelbnt marking ink for all pur- 
poses; dries quickly, does not spread, and is nearly 
indestructible. 

FORMULAS FOR MIXING COLORS. (SELECTED.) 

It is impossible to give infallible recipes for mix- 
ing colors, on acount of the difference in the tone 
and color strength of pigments, both dry and in oil, 
many samples having as high as fifty per cent, of 



Practical House Painter. 147 

barytes or other white makewright material, which 
not only lessens the color strength of the mixture in 
proportion to their volume, but weakens the color, 
in a small measure, by their presence as white ma- 
terial. Hence, color formulas are made subject to 
modification, not only to please the taste of the 
mixer, but on account of the presence of poor, weak 
and adulterated pigments. 

The writer has selected a few formulas from 
which the learner may gain some knowledge of 
colors, which he can improve upon by experiment. 

Plumb, — White leadt 2 parts*; Indian red, 1 part; 
ultramarine blue, 1 part. If too dark, add more 
white lead. (Outside.) 

Brick. — Yellow ochre, 2 parts; Venetian red, 1 
part; white lead, 1 part. If too dark, add more 
ochre. Don^t depend upon the common ochre of the 
stores. It has but little tinting power. Use French 
ochre ground in oil. (Outside.) 

Bronze Green,. — Chrome green, 5 parts; lamp- 
black, 1 part; burnt umber, 1 part. If too dark, 
use more green. (Outside.) 

Jonquil Yellow. — White lead tinted with chrome 
yellow and vermilion. 

Lead Color. — White Lead, 16 parts; ultramarine 
blue, 1 part; lampblack, 2 parts. (Outside.) 

Light Buff. — White lead tinted v/ith yellow ochre 
(Outside.) 



^NoTE. — Pa^rt means in bulk, not by weight. 



148 Practical House Painter. 

Lemon. — Lemon chrome yellow, 5 parts; white 
lead, 2 parts. (Outside.) 

Brown. — Indian red, 3 parts ; lamp black, 2 parts ; 
yellow ochre, 1 part. If too dark, use more ochre or 
less black. (Outside.) 

Chestnut. — Venetian red, 2 parts; lamp black, 1 
part; medium chrome yellow, 4 parts. (Outside.) 

Lilac. — Light Indian red, 3 parts; white lead, 3 
parts; ultramarine blue, 1 part. 

Purple. — Light Indian red, 4 parts; white lead, 3 
parts; ultramarine blue, 2 parts. 

London Smoke. — Burnt umber, 2 parts; white 
lead, 1 part; Venetian red, 1 part. 

Brown. — Venetian red, 3 parts; drop black, 2 
parts; chrome yellow, 1 part. (Outside.) 

French Gray. — White, tinted with ivory or drop 
black. (Outside.) 

Olive Yellow. — Burnt umber, 3 parts; lemon 
chrome yellow, 1 part. For lighter shade, add more 
yellow. 

Pearl. — White lead, 6 parts; Venetian red, 2 
parts; lamp black, 1 part. If too dark, add more 
lead. (Outside.) 

Olive. — Lemon chrome yellow, 10 parts; ultra- 
marine blue, 1 part; light Indian red, 1 part. 

Cream Color. — White lead, 8 parts; French yel- 
low ochre in oil, 2 parts; Venetian red, 1 part. (Out- 
side. ) 

Tan. — Burnt sienna, 5 parts; medium chrome 



Practical House Painter. 149 

yellow, 2 parts ; raw umber, 1 part. If too red, add 
more raw umber. 

Pea Green. — White lead, 5 parts; chrome green, 
1 part. Vary the proportions to suit. 

Drab. — White lead, 10 parts; burnt umber, 1 
part. Vary to suit. 

Canary. — White lead, 6 parts; lemon chrome yel- 
low, 2 parts, or less, as you like it. (Outside.) 

Fawn. — White lead, 8 parts; chrome yellow, 1 
part; Indian red, 1 part; burnt umber, 1 part. (Out- 
side.) 

Grass Green. — Lemon chrome yellow, 3 parts; 
Prussian blue, 1 part. 

Peach Blossom. — White lead, 1 part; light Indian 
red, 1 part ; ultramarine blue, 1 part ; lemon chrome 
yellow, 1 part. 

Light Gray. — White lead, 10 parts; ultramarine 
blue, 1 part; lampblack, 1 part. Make lighter or 
darker by using more or less white lead, as the case 
may require. 

Purple Brown. — Dark Indian red, 4 parts; ultra- 
marine blue, 1 part; lampblack, 1 part. Light up 
with white lead to fancy. If too purple, use less 
blue; if too red, use more black. (Outside.) 

Leather Broivn. — Venetian red, 2 parts; yellow 
ochre, 4 parts; lampblack, 1 part; white lead, 2 
parts or more, to suit. If too dark, use less black. 
(Outside.) 



150 Practical House Painter. 

Dregs of Wine. — Tuscan red with a little lamp- 
black and white lead. 

Leaf Bud. — Equal parts white lead, orange chrome 
and chrome green. If too dark, add more lead. (In- 
side only.) 

Coral Pink. — Vermilion (English), 5 parts; white 
lead, 2 parts; chrome yellow, 1 part. (Inside.) 

Maroon. — Tuscan red, 3 parts; ultramarine blue, 

1 part. If too red, add more blue. 

Myrtle. — Dark chrome green, 3 parts ; ultramarine 
blue, 1 part. Light up with white lead. 

Stone. — White lead, 5 parts ; French yellow ochre, 

2 parts; burnt umber, 1 part. Tint to desired 
shade with raw umber; a very little will do. (Out- 
side.) 

Snuff. — Medium chrome yellow, 4 parts ; Vandyke 
brown, 2 parts. 

Rose. — White lead, 5 parts; carmine, 2 parts. 
(Inside only.) 

Portland Stone. — Raw umber, 3 parts; yellow 
ochre, 3 parts; white lead, 1 part. (Outside.) 

Ashes of Roses. — White, lightly tinted with black, 
blue and lake. (Inside only.) 

Silver Gray. — Tint white lead with lampblack and 
indigo. 

Fine Chocolate. — Tint the best burnt umber with 
Munich lake. (Inside only.) 

Fine Maroon. — Tint any deep red lake with a lit- 
tle orange chrome yellow. 



Practical House Painter. 151 

Vienna Smoke. — Tint fine burnt umber with lem- 
on chrome yellow and a little Venetian red. 

Quaker G^reen. — Chrome green, 3 parts; lamp- 
black, 1 part ; Venetian red, 1 part ; medium chrome 
yellow, 1 part. 

Chamoline. — Lemon yellow, 1 part; raw sienna, 
3 parts; white lead, 5 parts. 

Clay Drab. — White lead, raw sienna, raw umber^. 
equal parts. Tint with chrome green. 

Pearl. — White lead, tinted with ultramarine blue 
and lampblack. 

Copper. — Medium chrome yellow, 2 parts; Vene- 
tian red, 1 part; drop black, 1 part. 

Buttercup. — White lead tinted with lemon chrome 
yellow. 

Flesh. — White lead, 8 parts; light Venetian red, 
1 part; orange chrome, 2 parts. 

Olive Brown. — Lemon chrome yellow, 1 part; 
burnt umber, 3 parts. 

Deep Buff. — White lead tinted with yellow ochre 
and a little Venetian red. (Outside.) 

SOME EXPENSIVE COLORS. 

Claret. — Carmine, 2 parts; ultramarine blue, 1 
part. 

Carnation Red. — Carmine lake, 3 parts; white 
lead, 1 part. 

Chocolate. — Fine burnt umber, 5 parts; carmine 
or lake, 1 part. 



152 Practical House Paiuter. 

French Red. — Indian red and English vermilion, 
equal parts, glazed with carmine. 

Rose. — White lead, 5 parts ; carmine, 2 parts. 

Yellow Lake. — Burnt umber and white lead, equal 
parts; tint with chrome yellow and lake. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR TINTS AND COLORS. 

Delicate Flesh Tints, white predominating. — 1st, 
white and light red; 2nd, white, Naples yellow, ver- 
milion; 3rd, white, vermilion and light red. 

Gray and Half Tints, white predominating. — 1st, 
white, vermilion and black; 2nd, white and terre 
verte; 3rd, white, black, Indian red and raw umber. 

Deep Shades, color predominating. — 1st, light red 
and raw umber; 2nd, Indian red, lake and black. 

Carnations. — 1st, white and Indian red; 2nd, 
white and rose madder; 3rd, white and lake; 4th, 
white and Naples yellow. 

Carnations, color predominating. — 1st, rose mad- 
der and white; 2nd, Indian red, rose madder and 
white. 

Green Tints. — 1st, white and ultramarine blue, 
with any yellow; 2nd, white and terre verte; add a 
little raw umber. 

Gray Tints. — 1st, ultramarine blue, light red and 
white; 2nd, Indian red lake, black and white. 

Pearly White, white predominating. — 1st, white, 



Practical House Painter. 153 

vermilion and black; 2nd, white, vermilion and 
black; 3rd, white and black. 

Gray. — White, Venetian red and black, 
^Yellow. — Yellow ochre and white. 

Olive. — Yellow ochre, terre verte and nmberc 

Slcy. — French blue and white. 

PAINTING CARS AT HOME. 

Probably no other subject dealing with the prob- 
lem of the motorist has been so little, or to be cor- 
rect, so unsatisfactorily treated as the home paint- 
ing of cars. Most of the literature dealing with 
the subject is written in a technical vein, purely 
for the delectation of the professional painter. 
This naturally leads the novice to believe, owing to 
the great number of coats these writers say is es- 
sential for good work, that it is entirely out of the 
question for a car owner, without previous experi- 
ence in painting, to repaint his car satisfactorily. 

Fortunately this is not true. In the first place, 
the fewer number of coats that can be applied and 
still accomplish the desired result, will make far 
the most durable and lasting job of painting. I 
maintain, and have proven, times without number, 
that if a motorist really is in earnest about want- 
ing to paint his cars, the battle is more than half 
won. Give this class of motorists the proper ma- 



154 Practical House Painter. 

terial mixed ready for use with the proper brushes 
for their application, and tell him how the}^ should 
be used, and 99 times out of 100 he will paint his 
ear so well that he will be sorry he had not done 
it before. 

The quality of the material used in this kind of 
painting is of vital importance and unless they are 
the very best will give but limited wear. And the 
proper brushes to use with the different coats is of 
equal importance. About four-fifths the cost of au- 
tomobile painting is labor, so that a few dollars 
saved in buying the materials is false economy. 

The general purpose enamels for sale in stores 
have no place on a motor car. They belong to the 
home. Probably no other vehicle excepting a loco- 
motive has harder service for paint to withstand. 
Hence, the necessity for the very best materials. 

There is one reputable concern selling repainting 
outfits to car owners so that greatly simplifies the 
painting problem, if one wishes to do it himself. 
These outfits include everything, materials, brushes, 
and instructions, and range in price from $6 for a 
small runabout to $8 and $10 for a roadster and 
touring car. Compared to $35 to upwards of $100 
that one has to pay a regular painter, if one wishes 
to economize, the painting affords a grand oppor- 
tunity. 



Practical House Painter. 155 

The fenders and hood of a car are subjected to 
severe wear and the time is coming when these parts 
will always be painted black, regardless of the body 
color of the car. In fact, a great many of the new 
cars will be painted this way. There are thousands 
of cars in use that hardly need repainting, but if 
the hood and fenders were done over in black it would 
make them look almost like new cars. There is one 
concern making these hood and fender outfits and 
a novice can do a really creditable Job of painting 
with them. They range in price from $3 to $5 and 
are in two coats with a suitable brush. 

The gases from the motor are a big factor in dull- 
ing the paint on hoods. It has the same effect that 
ammonia fumes from a stable has on horse-drawn 
vehicles. This is one reason why the black paint- 
ing of hoods is mighty sensible. ^¥lien your hood 
gets dull, instead of laying up your car you can 
paint the hood yourself with little trouble and no 
loss of time. 

For the novice to repaint the average car, for 
instance a 30 H. P. touring car, it would require in 
labor only a few hours on four or five different days. 
The hardest part of the whole operation is pre- 
paring the car for paint. It is absolutely necessary 
to have it thoroughly clean before applying any 
paint. It should be well washed first, and then 



156 Practical House Painter. 

given a gasoline bath to the parts on which dirt 
and grease have been allowed to accumulate. It is 
really not so complex a proposition after all. If a 
woman can paint furniture with enamels that are 
no better than they should be, a man can surely 
paint a car if given the proper materials to do it 
with, and if he be instructed in their use. 

Now as to striping. This is of course out of 
the question for the novice. But you can black the 
mouldings of the body, seats, doors, hubs and rims 
of wheels so that the absence of striping is not no- 
ticed. So far as the striping goes, the tendency is 
away from it — in fact, the most expensive cars have 
hardly any striping. The blacking of the mould- 
ings, etc., mentioned makes a harmonious contrast 
and takes the place of striping. It looks in no ways 
amateurish — rather like the handiwork of the pro- 
fessional painter. 

In addition to the saving that can be effected by 
repainting your car yourself, there is the feeling of 
personal pride when the job is finished, of having 
dene something well yourself. 

As the majority of the new cars have enameled 
lamps instead of polished brass as in years past, I 
believe a few words on the subject will not be amiss. 
In my experience of twenty years in the painting of 
vehicles, locomotives and automobiles, I have never 



Practical House Painter. 157 

had a harder proposition to solve than the enamel- 
ing of polished brass lamps, particularly gas head- 
lights. 

An enamel for this purpose must of necessity be 
made highly elastic, so that it will contract and 
expand with the metal and stick on the polished 
brass surface without any previous roughing. This 
means that only the most expensive materials can 
be used in the making of such an enamel. There 
is one enamel of proven merit for this purpose on 
the market and it does not have to be baked. I 
have seen a great many motorists who have used 
general purpose enamels on their lamps and the 
experience has usually been that the enamel leaves 
when the lights are lighted. If I were buying aix 
enamel for use on the brass parts of my car, I 
should be very careful to buy the one that had been 
long on the market, for there will undoubtedly be 
a large number of new ones offered. 

I have made some pretty strong statements in 
the foregoing article, and it is no more than right 
that I tell you that they are based on my experi- 
ence of twenty years in the painting of carriages, 
locomotives and automobiles, two 3^ears as the ex- 
pert for the largest paint and color house in the 
world, and several years in the manufacture of the 
highest class of motor car paints. 



